Every newborn child in Flanders can be screened for nineteen congenital disorders via a blood test. The Population Screening Congenital Disorders is expanding in three phases with seven diseases, including the muscle disease spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Flemish Minister of Health and Family Wouter Beke (CD&V) announced this on Thursday in the East Limburg Hospital (ZOL) in Genk. One million euros extra per year is provided for the expansion.
With the Population Screening Congenital Disorders, rare congenital diseases are detected before they manifest themselves clinically. For example, early treatment can be started to prevent serious disabilities or slow down the disease process.
To date, the population screening has detected twelve congenital diseases. The last expansion happened in 2019 with the addition of cystic fibrosis. The screening is now being expanded in three phases to include seven diseases. The first three diseases can be added immediately. SMA will follow from July 2022, while the remaining three diseases will be added from 2023.
Detection in the first days of life
“The diseases that we detect in the Population Screening Congenital Disorders are rare, but they cause a lot of suffering when they develop,” says Minister Beke. “By detecting them in the first days of a baby’s life, treatment can start quickly to avoid that suffering or at least slow down the disease.”
Conditions for adding a disease are that an effective and feasible treatment must be available and that early detection must lead to a better prognosis, according to the Agency for Care and Health. The screening method must also be technically feasible and implementable within the existing screening programme.
“That requires careful preparation together with our screening centers and other experts,” said spokesman Joris Moonens. “After all, every step in the screening process must be of the highest quality: from the detection method, to the provision of information to the parents and the route to treatment in the event of an abnormal result.”
Blood sample between 72 and 96 hours after birth
In Flanders, more than 99 percent of newborn babies are currently screened via the population screening. This is done via a blood sample taken between 72 and 96 hours after birth. If the result deviates, the hospital will receive a signal within a week and people will be called back for a check-up. If this is also positive, further diagnosis and treatment will follow. In this way, the treatment started within the age of one month, according to the ZOL.
“If you treat these children early, there is also much less pressure in society,” explains Dr Marie-Rose Van Hoestenberghe, pediatrician at ZOL. “These are often diseases that cause serious retardation and serious pathology, where you can still make a big difference with treatment. The degree of disability of those children is definitely going down and in some cases just going to be therapeutically okay.”
The expansion also marks the start of a campaign to educate parents about the importance of early disease detection. The information campaign includes a TV commercial and social media advertisements, and is intended to inform both parents and caregivers about the expansion of the population screening. For more information, the campaign refers to www.aannataldisorders.be†
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and never miss a thing from the stars.