PACT – Prevention Awareness Care of Thalassemia

Prevention Awareness Care of Thalassemia (PACT) aims to support for children suffering from β-thalassemia. PACT with the focus on creating Prevention, Awareness & Cure of Thalassemia. These campaign involve carrier detections, molecular diagnostics, genetic counselling and prenatal diagnosis. Special methods that are currently quite expensive and not widely applicable are preimplantation and preconception diagnosis. These campaign is important and emphasize in awareness by intensive education directed toward the health personnel and to the population at large. By use of mass media, posters, and informational booklets, which are left at various key sites such as family planning clinics, marriage registries, and counselling rooms. Also we contact with parents regularly maintained to update them on the content of the messages to avoid potential misinformation.
The primary effect of the campaign if for preventing β-thalassemia in India, has been the acquisition by the couples at risk of the appropriate knowledge to make informed decisions on the reproductive options available to them. We provide appropriate knowledge of the genetic risk and methods of prevention. The number of thalassemia major children born per year predicted on the basis of the carrier rate, assuming a random mating, shows a reduction from 1:250 live births to 1:1660 in 2009 with an effective prevention of 85% of the cases.