A Twenty year experience of Primary Immune Deficiencies’ investigations in resource-limited settings

Primary Immune Deficienes (PID) are a heterogeneous group of inherited disorders in which immune system dysfunctions cause an enhanced susceptibility to infections that is the common clinical feature of these diseases. To date, more than 200 genes have been identified and associated with as many different immunodeficiencies. The frequency of PIDs is higher in North-Africa and Middle-East as compared to Europe and North- America. Indeed, our population is characterized by a high frequency of consanguineous marriages which may reach 50% in rural areas. This may account for the higher incidence of autosomal recessive immunodeficiencies observed. During the last twenty years, we’ve diagnosed and investigated at the Institut Pasteur de Tunis, a resource-limited institution, 655 tunisian cases of PIDs including patients with combined immunodeficiencies, antibody deficiencies, phagocytosis defects, complement deficiencies and other well-defined immunodeficiencies