By Ngozi Nwoke
“Can DNA test fail?” This is the question asked by many who have suspicion and doubt in some paternity tests carried out by labs. Many are also of the opinion that the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test would ruin many homes if made compulsory.
The case of 20-year-old Juliet, who was allegedly stolen at birth from her biological parents in Enugu, where a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test earlier conducted, which came back negative, suggested that the ‘parents’ the woman in question have known as her parents are not her biological parents.
It was gathered that the result of the DNA test conducted at a laboratory said Prof. Okwudili is the father of Juliet. The said Juliet is alleged to have been stolen from her mother at birth by one Mrs. Mariatha and has lived with them for the past 20 years and by ‘divine miracle’, Juliet met Lady Okwudili, whom the first DNA test result identified as her biological mother.
To ascertain the possibility and clear doubts, the Okwudilis conducted a DNA test on the young lady, which came out positive. But the matter has now become a subject of controversy.
Confusion set in when NAPTIP invited the Okwudilis to its Enugu office and told them that they were not the biological parents of Juliet.
A NAPTIP official subsequently handed them the DNA result from a medical diagnostic centre, which said they were not the biological parents of Juliet.
The DNA result partly reads: “Final Result: An incompatibility with paternity was found at more than two markers. Paternity of individual 1 (Mr Okwudili excluded.)” When Mr Okwudili was contacted, he confirmed the development but vowed to get to the root of the discrepancies in the DNA test results.
He said: “I am not worried about the discrepancies in DNA test results but I can assure you I will get to the root of it, no matter what it takes.
“The only way the DNA test results could vary is if samples taken from one of us were swapped. Otherwise, there’s no way a DNA test result from the same samples could come out with different results from two laboratories. One must be right and another not correct.”
There was a similar reported case of paternity fraud where two men fought over a child. The couple were childless before the wife got pregnant for her childhood boyfriend. She gave birth to twin boys, who incidentally looked a lot like her husband but the man outside was pressuring her to bring the children, saying he was ready to marry her.
It became a big issue and when it came to the matter of child custody, the court brought them for a test and it was discovered that the man at home and her childhood boyfriend were not even the father of the child.
On the skepticism that DNA tests can be false, Abiodun Salami, a senior geneticist in Lagos, noted that it is possible to make human error, especially when there is a mix-up with the DNA samples.
He said: “There are several reasons. The first reason is immigration purposes because when you are travelling abroad, you will be required to carry out a DNA test on the kids who would be accompanying you, especially if you say you are the parent. The second reason could be child trafficking. At the airport, if you are a woman and you are traveling with a child less than six months, you will be asked to go for a maternity test to confirm if you are the mother of the child.
“Let me give you the statistics. Before now, we did an average of 100 DNA tests in a month, but now we handle as many as 400 cases monthly. The statistics are mind-blowing.
“You discover that almost 60 percent of the tests that people come to do are negative. In fact, six out of every 10 paternity tests turn out negative. Statistically, in DNA paternity testing, most times, in Nigeria, we see that six out of every 10 children might not be fathered by their biological father.
“It is also biased statistics because for someone to walk in here, he already suspects that there is an issue. There is really a doubt already and most people won’t believe that statistics until it happens to them. I always advise men, it is good to trust, but verify. Things are happening. If everyone starts doing DNA tests, the whole country will scatter. There will be no marriages again.
“It is possible to make human error, especially when there is a mix-up with the sample. That is a human error but it is very rare. But there are also cases where we have Chimera’s syndrome, but it is also rare. This is when a woman’s DNA does not match that of her child. It is very rare, probably one in a million cases.
“For the prevention of such erroneous blunders, I recommend training and retraining of the nurses. Then the name tag, maybe they will use another technology and not use a biro to label a baby. If they can use scan to scan the mother’s and baby’s hands, it is much better than using biro and paper to tag baby A and B and it falls off and they slap it on another baby. That happens a lot.
“One DNA test costs about N60,000 per person, which is about N120, 000 for father and child. We use different samples like the mouth swab, hair, blood, wax, sweat, chewing gum, and toothbrush. But the best is the mouth swab where you just use cotton wool, it is those loose cells from the mouth that we extract the DNA from the nucleus of those cells. Once the DNAs are extracted, we then compare the genes. As a human being, I inherit half of the genes from my father and another half from my mother.
“So, what we do is to compare half of my father’s DNA with half of mine and there must be a complete match. If there is a complete match, then the probability of paternity is about 99.99%. If there is a mismatch in one or two or three places, it will automatically come down to zero. That means we are not related and the results are ready within a week or at least seven working days.”
Another pathologist consultant and counselor in Lagos, Lawrence Uchenna, blamed the trend of DNA tests to lack of trust between partners. He disclosed that most firstborns are not the biological children of their mothers’ husbands at home as their mothers were in relationships prior to the marriage.
He stated: “From experience in DNA testing, most firstborns are not fathered by the husbands at home, because these people have a prior relationship before getting married. Most times, they continue with that relationship, they don’t leave it after marriage.
“We had a case of a family that did IVF and used a surrogate mother. When they wanted to travel out, the embassy sent them here to carry out a paternity and maternity test to discover that they were not the real parents of their babies. We discovered that the fertility clinic they used actually mixed the man’s sperm. They had triplets, two children were from the man’s sperm cells and one was not from him.
“The two other children were from the mother’s cells and one was not from her. They had to go back to the agency to find out what happened. Probably, there was a mix-up of sperm cells or eggs. But, normally, even if they used a surrogate mother, the children would take their DNA from the egg or sperm donor, so it doesn’t really matter.”
The expert proffered that trust, truth and transparency were the remedy for couples to avert paternity fraud, adding that the DNA test will always expose the biological father of a child regardless of how much it is hidden.
“Couples should open up to themselves before coming for a DNA test because we will detect. Normally, DNA tests should be a perfect match between the child and the parent. If you are doing a paternity test for a child and samples taken from both parents, it should have a perfect match.
“This is because each child will take half of the chromosome from the father and another half from the mother. If there is a mismatch, there is a problem. Now, if we are having a perfect match for the father and an almost imperfect match from the mother, we will ask questions.”