Iranian national thalassaemia screening programme

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7475.1134

BMJ 2004;329:1134-1137 (13 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7475.1134

Primary care

Iranian national thalassaemia screening programme

Ashraf Samavat, head¹, Bernadette Modell, emeritus professor of community genetics²

¹ Genetics Office, Disease Management Centre, Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Tehran, Iran, ² University College London Centre for Health Informatics and Multiprofessional Education, London N19 5LW

Correspondence to: B Modell b.modell@pcps.ucl.ac.uk

Iran's experience shows that genetic screening can be successfulin lower resource countries and also provides some lessons forhigh resource nations

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Introduction

Progress in controlling communicable diseases increases therelative importance of non-communicable diseases, includinggenetic disorders.¹ In Iran, the development of primary healthcare over the past 20 years has greatly reduced infant mortalityand crude birth rate. Accordingly, in 1991 prevention of non-communicablediseases was added to the primary healthcare programme, anda department for the control of non-communicable disease, includinga genetics office, was established within the Ministry of Healthand Medical Education. ${beta}$ Thalassaemia, which is an importanthealth problem in Iran,² was chosen to test the feasibilityof preventing non-communicable disease in primary care. We describehow the programme has been implemented.

Primary healthcare infrastructure in Iran

Iran has a five level primary healthcare network covering theentire population of 60 million, in 28 provinces (figure).³Responsibility for health and medical education are merged throughoutthe system. Each medical university has a vice chancellor responsiblefor primary health care. There were . . . [Full text of this article]

Design of thalassaemia prevention programme

Results of screening programme

Effect of evaluation on development of programme

Financial aspects

Problems and further development

Lessons from the Iranian experience

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Advantages of genetic screening in primary care

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