The “Healthy Marriage” program which conducts premarital medical tests for engaged couples has revealed that 65 percent of those classified as “incompatible” in 2008 cancelled their marriage plans. Al-Madina newspaper reported that the head of the program in the Eastern Province, Nawwaf Al-Otaibi, compared the statistic to the 9 percent in 2004 who called off their weddings due to the discovery of illness via test. The program, made obligatory for engaged couples since its introduction following Cabinet approval in 2004, provides tests for hereditary and contagious illnesses and couples are afterwards free to proceed with the union whatever the outcome, except in the case of HIV/AIDS patients who are only permitted to contract marriage with other persons with HIV/AIDS. “In 2009 we only discovered three cases of HIV/AIDS, and 76 cases of Hepatitis C, and 308 of Hepatitis B,” Al-Otaibi told Al-Madina. The higher rate of couples calling off marriages following the test was, Al-Otaibi said, due to the success of the Advisory Clinics which work to persuade couples to not go ahead with the union if one of the pair has been found to carry an illness. The Eastern Province has eight Ministry of Health centers and five non-ministry government health centers which give an estimated 26,000 premarital medical examinations every year. __
