WRITTEN BY BONAVENTURE ALUFO
Nowadays, most people, especially the illiterate ones, do things without considering the consequences of their actions. Such people do not care what would be the effect of their decision on their families, the state and the nation at large.
These days, people place top priority on knowing their HIV/AIDS status before marriage, thanks to church guidelines and demands. Most churches insist on such test before church wedding could take place. Unfortunately, no such attention is placed on genotype and blood group for intending couples before they are wedded in some churches. Marriage is a life time relationship and must be taken carefully.
Children are the proceeds of the union called marriage. According to the Bible; “His thought for us is for good and not of evil and to give us an expected end”. Perfect children are gift from God. Therefore, youths that are desirous of settling down in marriage should do the needful so that God will bless their marriage with perfect gifts, including children.
Couple cannot beget sickle cell children unless the partners did not do the proper thing expected of them before the marriage. Couples should therefore not subject these innocent unborn kids to permanent predicament and stigmatization.
Meanwhile, the church has key role to play in this regard. In fact, the Church should be blamed for the high rate of sickle cell patients. The leadership of the church in some denominations has failed to sensitize their members properly on the need to be tested and dangers of not being tested for genotype and blood group before marriage.
Many priests and pastors go ahead and wed the couples without confirming their genotype status. It is strongly believe that when medical examinations of all areas of human functionalities are taken care of, the stories of frequent divorces here and there, and other marital related issues would be a history.
On the other hand, the governments also have major roles to play. They should engage in extraordinary sensitization. No doubt, a state-wide sensitization is really money consuming, but thank God for the able leadership of Governor Willie Obiano-Akpokuedike global. He has special interest in the health of his people and has been making funds available for health issues that would benefit Ndi Anambra.
Akpokuedike equally created an agency called Anambra State Health Insurance Agency (ASHIA). The agency is complementing the efforts of the Ministry of Health to help the people access proper health services easily. The Ministry of Health should therefore help to sensitize the citizenry on the significance of testing for genotype before marriage.
In another development, the wisdom and the effort of the Anambra State House of Assembly is commendable for enacting a law making a genotype test compulsory before marriage. The law, known as “A Sickle Cell Disease Control and Eradication Repeal Law”, is seeking to eradicate sickle cell anaemia in the state and set those living with it free from all kinds of oppression, abuse and exploitation.
According to the law, parents and guardians in Anambra State risk imprisonment if they give out their children or wards with sickle cell anaemia in marriage without verification of a qualified sickle cell disease preventive certificate. The law equally states that priests, pastors and marriages registries that perform such holy matrimony risk jail term. The law also put in place a monitoring committee to ensure full compliance.
For those who have not married and intend to marry, they must ensure they go for genotype and other related tests before going into such marriage. This would reduce drastically giving birth to sickle cell babies in Anambra State in particular and Nigeria in general. All hands must be on deck to fight the scourge of sickle cell anaemia in the society.
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