Genetic Disorders in Arab Populations

Since the 1950s, Arab countries have made progress in some health related aspects such as: infant mortality, life expectancy, and access to health care. Infectious diseases and nutritional disorders have decreased in prevalence because of significant advances in immunization and the overall improvement in hygiene. Arab scholars working in the field of biomedical sciences are giving more attention to the publication of their results especially on clinical and molecular findings for many genetic diseases (Fig. 5). Most of the local scientific studies on genetic disorders in the Arab World are conducted in laboratories of the Gulf Cooperation Council (e.g., Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), the Maghreb region (e.g., Tunisia and Morocco), Lebanon, and Jordan (Tadmouri and Bissar-Tadmouri, 2004).