" The
chance of genetic diseases increases with each consanguine marriage
between defective gene carriers. A genetic pool with a long history of
such marriages would indeed bread very interesting results "

Dr. Anain Yvorra

Reports
have found that several genomic diseases such as thalassaemia, a blood
disorder, diabetes, breast cancer and Down’s syndrome have reached
epidemic levels, more than 100 cases per 100,000, in the three Gulf
countries researched so far.

Ghazi said building the database was important as "it gives us a
bird’s-eye view of each country on genetic diseases. Some are epidemic
and some very rare,” he...

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" The
chance of genetic diseases increases with each consanguine marriage
between defective gene carriers. A genetic pool with a long history of
such marriages would indeed bread very interesting results "

Dr. Anain Yvorra

Reports
have found that several genomic diseases such as thalassaemia, a blood
disorder, diabetes, breast cancer and Down’s syndrome have reached
epidemic levels, more than 100 cases per 100,000, in the three Gulf
countries researched so far.

Ghazi said building the database was important as "it gives us a
bird’s-eye view of each country on genetic diseases. Some are epidemic
and some very rare,” he told the UAE paper The National.

Dr. Anain Yvorra, general director of France's Eurobiomed, organizer of
this year's Montpellier conference on rare genetic diseases, told Al
Arabiya the research done by CAGS would be of great interest to the
field of genomic studies.

"The chance of genetic diseases increases with each consanguine
marriage between defective gene carriers. A genetic pool with a long
history of such marriages would indeed bread very interesting results."

He noted however that although most of the diseases recognized by CAGS
as epidemics in the UAE, Oman and Bahrain, are genetically related,
breast cancer could also have many other triggers.

"Breast cancer could be environmental or emotional as well as genetic."

The center funded by the Sheikh Hamadan Award form medical sciences
states on its website that its vision is "to alleviate human suffering
from genetic diseases in the Arab World."