5:30 pm… End of the year…

My last email for the day comes with an ‘URGENT” message from a friend looking for a laboratory to run a complete newborn screening on a baby that went into respiratory arrest.  His message: “Please help me save his life” will be engraved in my mind and my heart until the day I die.

Many babies are screened at birth in developed countries for metabolic and endocrine disorders. This baby was not part of the fortunate group.  The baby is now in the Intensive Care Unit in a hospital in South America keeping doctors busy discussing what could be wrong with him. Many babies are in the same situation not only in South America but also in Central America, most of Africa and some countries in Asia. Some of them require something simple to survive, an inexpensive treatment, a change in diet.  Others will require medical and psychological treatment for life. Those who could have been screened and are not, could face neurological problems and disability for life. They could have developed normal but they were not diagnosed early.

New parents are often unaware that these disorders are inherited and that all it would take for them to save their baby’s lives is a drop of blood.

This is the situation all over the world but it is worse in developing countries. Laboratories struggle everyday to meet the needs of their patients while reagents are hard to obtain. In other cases, it takes several weeks for reagents to reach the laboratories and when they do, they are past their expiration date.  Many country regulations allow for only one distributor of these products and when the distributor fails to meet the laboratory needs, the laboratory is left empty handed and what is worse, newborns are not screened. Lives are lost or neurological problems appear.

WSAID’s most important New Year’s Resolution is to help those babies and the laboratories that are trying to contribute to Newborn Screening. Help us help them !!!!  The laboratories need supplies, reagents, technical expertise and instrumentation. The babies need a blood test. Their parents need support and someone to talk to.

We need your help to save their lives that are just beginning.

Helping is easy:

Send us an email and tell us your story or how you would like to contribute:

info@wsaid.org

We will help you make a difference in the lives of these families.