Dr Babatunde Adewumi a medical expert of the General Hospital, Omu Aran, has advised Nigerians to run multiple genotype tests to avoid wrong genotype combination in their marriage.
He said that people should be more committed in tackling the sickle cell scourge.
According to him, wrong test result is one of the reasons responsible for the increasing rate of sickle cell carriers in the country.
There are two machines used for the genotype test; the one that is automated and the other one ‘Electrophoresis’ that is manual.
Most of the wrong results come from the tests done manually. Where you read the wavelength and other things.
Sometimes, due to the error of the machine, or the reader, you might get a wrong result.
The more automated one is the one that is likely to be error-free, except there is a clerical error from the person documenting it.
My advice to people when it comes to genotype is to do the test in multiple places, especially for those having results that they are AA.
Just to be on the safer side, they should conduct the test in two other places to get the exact result, because it is always good to have a tie-breaker, he said.
The public health specialist added that prevention, however, remained the best means of eliminating the scourge.
Nigeria has the highest burden of sickle cell disease in the world, so we need to put this in mind; let everybody know their genotype.
In no distant time, we can get this thing eradicated from our environment if people decide to put genotype testing in mind.
The best thing is to avoid it from the onset by being sure of your genotype.
The medical expert, however advised sickle cell carriers to keep strong and keep to their routine drugs in the face of the unfriendly environment.
