Genetic Counselling

According to World Health Organization, three to eight percent of married couples world wide are at high risk of producing an offspring with severe genetic disorder which is inherited in a Mendelian pattern. These disorders need careful attention through genetic services. However, it is a fact that in various parts of world, especially, in under-developed and developing countries where malnutrition and infection are still important problems; genetic services are an unaffordable luxury (WHO, 2006).
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) for the first time demonstrated the particular nature of inheritance. Although, Mendelian thinking contributed importantly to the general concepts in medicine, it was in the late 1950s when genetics involved significantly in clinical medicine. Medical genetics is the science of human biological variation as it relates to health and disease; while clinical genetic is that part of medical genetic which is concerned with the health of individual human and their families (McKusick, 2002).

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