The Ministry of Health (MOH), represented by Tabuk Health Affairs General Directorate, stated that the Healthy Marriage Program has received, via 8 pre-marital screening centers, a number of 5,572 persons intending to marry over the first half of the current year. Besides, a number of 148 cases have been referred to the medical counseling clinic; so as to provide them with advice and guidelines in strict confidence about the seriousness of these diseases and the possibility of their transmission to children. The cases have been referred to these clinics after the test results showed their incompatibility of the man and woman intending to marry, because both of them are infected, both of them are disease carrier, or one of them is infected and the another one is carrier of the same disease.
The MOH went on adding that the tests, provided by the Program, is a blood testing for certain genetic diseases (sickle cell anemia and thalassemia) and some communicable diseases (Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS).