Incidence

The incidence of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy in the global population was recently estimated to be 1:3500-5000 live births. It is difficult to establish the exact number of live births in Iran as many births go unregistered, particularly in the Afghan and mixed Afghan/Iranian population . Germany has a similar population size of 80 million and statistics suggest that 100 new Duchenne children are registered there every year. The United States has a population of approximately 325,083,066 in 2017 and an estimated number of 12,000-15,000 Duchenne cases.

The incidence of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy in Iran is therefore estimated to be 3,000-3,500 or higher, particularly with regard to cases related to the inherited familial genetic mutations. This is due to problems locating and identifying affected children and their families and poor access to genetic counselling and educational prevention programmes.