Question

Which of the following diseases is hereditary?
(a) Cancer
(b) Tuberculosis
(c) Haemophilia
(d) Dysentery

Answer 1

This disease impairs the body's ability to make blood clots which are a process needed to stop bleeding.

Complete answer: Haemophilia is an inherited genetic disorder in which blood doesn’t clot properly. This resulted in bleeding for a longer time after an injury or easy bruising.

Men with haemophilia pass the altered gene to their daughters but not to their sons. However, women who carry the altered gene may pass it on to their sons and daughters. Sons with the transformed gene will suffer from haemophilia while daughters with the altered gene may have normal or reduced factor VIII levels.
Sometimes female progeny does not show any symptoms, while others may have only a bleeding tendency.
The severity of haemophilia is divided into three types: mild, moderate and severe and it depends on the amount of clotting factor in the person’s blood. There are mainly two types of haemophilia:
Haemophilia A: Haemophilia A occurs due to low amounts of clotting factor VIII. It affects about 1 in 5,000–10,000, males at birth.
Haemophilia B: Haemophilia B occurs due to low levels of clotting factor IX. It is less common and affects about 1 in 40,000, males at birth.
Another type of haemophilia includes haemophilia C which occurs due to low levels of factor XI. It is found in both sexes equally.

So, the correct answer is ‘Haemophilia’.

Note: 1. Both haemophilia A and B are X-linked recessive disorders that rarely affect females.
2. Parahaemophilia is a mild and rare type of haemophilia that occurs due to a deficiency in factor V.