Hamdan Medical Award participated in the 4th International Conference of Medical Genetics in Kuwait, from 16th till 18th of April.

 

Dr. Ghazi Tadmouri, Assistant Director of the Award's Centre for Arab Genomic Studies (CAGS), presented a study on Genetic Disorders in Kuwait based on initial data collected from the Catalogue for Transmission Genetic in Arabs (CTGA) Database for genetic disorders in Arab populations.

 

"CTGA cites the presence of at least 222 genetic disorders in the Arab population of Kuwait. Many of these disorders were found to be of high prevalence and common with other GCC countries, such as sickle cell anemia, thalassemias, G6PD deficiency, Down syndrome, and others. Yet, many of disorders described in the country are considered rare and are found only in limited number of patients.  Additionally, there are 36 private disorders for the Kuwaiti population including Teebi Al-Saleh Hassoon syndrome, Teebi Naguib Al-Awadi syndrome, and others", he said.

 

"According to WHO's disease classification, a large proportion of the diseases in Kuwaitis belongs to the category of congenital malformations and chromosomal abnormalities (32%), followed by endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases (19%), diseases of the nervous system (9%), diseases of the blood and the immune mechanism (8%), and neoplasms (7%)", he added.

 

"By combining the early observations obtained from Kuwait along with the data from the completed surveys in Oman, UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain it becomes apparent that there are more than 510 genetic disorders in the region.  While this number seems to be alarming in comparison with the limited geography and population size of the region, the availability of these disorders offers a great opportunity for regional scientists to use related gene data for a better understanding of the function of the human genome and to translate this knowledge into future treatment models", he said.