Nearly 80,000 women in Nghe An need prenatal screening
(Baonghean.vn) - On the morning of February 1, the Department of Population and Family Planning organized a workshop to exchange expertise and provide information on prenatal and newborn screening in 2018 with the participation of the Department of Health, Nghe An Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital and population officers of 480 communes, wards and towns in the whole province.
In his opening speech at the Workshop, Dr. Nguyen Ba Tan - Head of the Population Department affirmed: Resolution No. 21 - NQ/TW on Population work in the new situation has shifted the focus from Family Planning to Population and Development.
To carry out this important task, prenatal and newborn screening is considered the first and key solution, determining the early development of human life and contributing to improving population quality.
 |
| Overview of the workshop. Photo: My Ha |
However, according to the Head of the Department of Population and Family Planning: Currently, in Nghe An, this work is still in the initial stage because the staff system is mostly untrained, and testing machines do not meet the demand. Even in central and urban areas, ultrasound diagnosis is still facing many difficulties, the number of doctors trained in prenatal diagnosis can be counted on the fingers. Other testing machines such as endocrine, genetic, and chromosome diagnosis are not yet available and people still have to go to large centers to perform screening.
In fact, Nghe An has about 80,000 pregnant women and more than 50,000 babies born each year. However, the number of cases that are screened and ultrasounded is only low, about 30% and most of them do not meet the requirements and techniques.
 |
| Taking blood from the heel for postnatal screening of children in Dien Chau district. Photo: My Ha |
From this reality, the Workshop on exchanging expertise and providing information on prenatal and newborn screening is an opportunity for the health sector to review the results achieved, difficulties and challenges in the coming period. The implementation of the workshop also aims to propagate changes, awareness of the people and raise the spirit and responsibility of the health sector to invest in the right direction to meet the increasing needs of the people in the area.
The workshop will take place over two days. During this time, doctors from the Center for Prenatal and Neonatal Screening – Nghe An Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital will introduce techniques in prenatal and neonatal screening and diagnosis. At the same time, the process of introducing and referring subjects for prenatal and neonatal screening, specimen collection techniques, and methods of evaluating results will be announced.
Since 2017, Nghe An Center for Prenatal and Newborn Screening has been in operation and is the 5th center nationwide under the General Department of Population and Family Planning. In addition to implementing socialization, the center also coordinates with the Provincial Department of Population and Family Planning to implement prenatal and newborn screening according to the Population and Health Target Program.
In 2017, through postnatal screening, the whole province detected 94/2,423 children suspected of G6PD deficiency.
Among 13,450 pregnant women screened prenatally by ultrasound, 393 cases of suspected congenital malformations were detected. In addition, the Center for Prenatal and Newborn Screening and Diagnosis performed Triple test and Double test on 535 pregnant women, with the results detecting 68 cases of suspected malformations.
