Polymedic Center
for Newborn Screening and Confirmatory
The aim of this important healthcare programme is to screen all babies for metabolic and heritable diseases. Although most newborns with these disorders look healthy at birth, they may be at risk of having serious health problems later in life.
These may include learning difficulties, recurrent sickness and even death if their disorder is not detected and treated early. In our programme, babies detected early and treated by our specialists have been shown to have good clinical outcomes.
Recently, the scope of the testing in the NBS programme has been expanded to include congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), galactosaemia (GAL), biotinidase (BIOT), cystic fibrosis (CF), severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) and inborn errors of metabolism (IEM) by MS/MS. These 6 tests can be ordered as a screening panel. Individually, these diseases are rare. Our laboratory was also established along with the Newborn Screening Programme to provide confirmatory tests for newborn screening cases, diagnostic tests (IEM cases for neonates, children and adults) as well as patient monitoring services of positive cases.
