Disputed paternity: experience in Ile-Ife, Nigeria

Results of paternity tests carried out in our hospital between September, 1984 and December, 1993 were analysed. There were 44 cases consisting of 37 (84.1%) groups of four each: the child, the mother and the two alleged fathers, and 7 (15.9%) groups of three, including the disputed child, the mother and the alleged father. Most of the disputed victims were children under age 10 years (97.7%), the oldest 'child' in dispute was 35 years. The total cumulative paternal exclusion rate with our standard techniques was only 27.5% consisting of 15.9% for ABO blood group system, 2.3% for Rhesus-D system and 9.3% for haemoglobin electrophoresis analysis. This is far below the exclusion rate of up to 97% and 99.9% obtained with the more reliable tests such as HLA and DNA analyses, respectively. There is a need to introduce a more reliable screening package for paternity testing in our specialised hospitals in order to ease the associated medicolegal problems since all the cases but one seen were referred from law courts.