THE NEED FOR NEW BORN SCREENING IN INDIA
By : Dr. Rajan R Patil.
Epidemiologist. School of Public Health,SRM University, Chennai.
Genetics is essentially public
health than than therapeutic.The
strength of genetics lies in
prevention of disease and not its cure. It
therefore needs to be taken up as public health measure for prevention of physical and mental
handicap The uniqueness of genetic disorders is variety and rarity. In medicine
roficiency comes by numbers, whereas most individual genetic disorders are rare
having the prevalence of 1:5000-15000 births, or even more.
INDIAN CONTEXT
Out of every 100 babies born in
this country annually, 6 to 7 have a birth defect. In Indian context, this
would translate to 1.7 million birth defects annually and would account for 9.6
per cent of all newborn deaths.With a large birth cohort of almost 26 million
per year, India would account for the largest share of birth defects in the
world. This would translate to an estimated 1.7 million babies born with birth efects
annually. In the study conducted by National Neonatology Forum, congenital malformations were the second commonest cause
(9.9%) of mortality among stillbirths and the fourth commonest cause (9.6%) of neonatal mortality and that
accounted for 4 per cent of under- ve mortality.
Birth defects account for 9.6%
of all new-born deaths and 4% of under five mortality. According to March of
Dimes, 2006, out of every 100 babies born in this country annually, 6 to 7 have
a birth defect. In Indian context, this would translate to 17 lakhs birth
defects annually. Development delays affect at least 10% children and these
delays if not intercepted timely may lead to permanent disabilities including
cognitive, hearing or vision.
GLOBAL CONTEXT
Globally, about 7.9 million
children are born annually with a serious birth defect of genetic or partially
genetic origin which accounts for 6 percent of the total births . At least 3.3
million children under ve years of age die from birth defects every year and
another 3.2 million of those who survive may be isabled for life. Cutting
across countries and their economic
status, 64.3 infants per thousand live births are born annually with birth
defects
Source :
1.
Aggraval SS. Medical Genetics in India – What
needs to be done? Indian J Med Res 130, October 2009, pp 354-356
2. MoHFW.
GOI. Child Helath Screening and Early Intervention
Services under NRHM.2013n
Services under NRHM.2013
