High incidence of profound XXXX in an isolated community.

@entity2319 @entity1 @entity393 @entity3492
In a Muslim Israeli Arab village, different types of @entity393 affect some 2% of the inhabitants. Most cases of profound @entity2319 are due to recessive mutations in the @entity3492 gene. Since in this community, marriages are by preference within the family (consanguineous), for many of the couples from the village the risk for an affected @entity1 is high. There are 30 families living in the village in which both parents have normal hearing and at least one @entity1 has a profound @entity393 . In these families, the birth of a @entity1 with profound @entity2319 did not change family planning. The rate of marriage was similar for the siblings of deaf @entity1 as for other individuals in the village. The major problems were encountered by the deaf individuals themselves; in particular, most of the @entity1 were not married. Because of the distinctive nature of this particular problem, different types of screening programs were envisaged. However, all of them are problematic. Therefore, as a first step it was decided to begin a program including individual genetic counseling together with education of the entire population on practical aspects of @entity1 genetics.
