S.B. No. 1946

NEWBORN SCREENING TEST ACT OF 2001

Statistics show that more than 1.5 million babies are born in the country every year. And for every baby born, one question always stands out and runs through every parent’s mind: “is my baby okay?”

This bill, otherwise known as the “Newborn Screening Test Act of 2001” aims to provide a definitive and reassuring answer to said question. Any infant could look normal healthy at first glance, however, no one can really be sure unless detailed screening is done.

Newborn screening aims to test infants for five potentially devastating and fatal metabolic disorders, namely, congenital hypothyroidism (CH), congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), galactosemia (GAL), phenylketonuria (PKU) and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (G6PD). Failure to detect early symptoms of these disorders could result to retardation, in the extreme case death.

The test done by trained professional through a simple needle prick in the infant’s and a few drops of blood bottled on a special absorbent paper. The samples are then sent to the newborn screening laboratory of the Institute of Human Genetics at the National Institutes of Health, U.P.-Manila, the only screening laboratory in the country.

This bill likewise aims to integrate newborn screening into the government’s existing health care delivery system to improve social justice, health awareness and with and without the people having to pay a cent for such test. It is also a way to catch up with other countries who are way ahead of us in new born screening. Newspapers reports show that only two percent of the infants in the country undergo newborn screening. Countries like Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia and some regions in China already screen 90 to 99 percent of their infants. The United States screens about 95 to 99 percent of its babies. Thailand was reported to have screened a very good 84 percent up from 60 percent the previous year.

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