Expanded newborn screening will be carried out in Russia since 2023

Expanded newborn screening will be carried out in Russia from 2023. The Agency for Social Information reported this, citing Sergei Kutsev, Director General of the Academician Bochkov Medical Genetic Research Center.

"Regional diagnostic centers, interregional ones, will be staffed to carry out the screening study itself and to carry out additional studies. The main test - genetic confirmation of the diagnosis - will be done in the central laboratory of the Academician Bochkov Medical and Genetic Research Center," Kutsev explained.

It is also reported that a post-examination period and patient routing after the screening will be developed.

Recall that in the summer of 2021, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced that Russia's neonatal screening program would expand from 5 to 36 diseases.

Newborns in Russia will undergo neonatal screening for 36 diseases. The comprehensive screening will be included in the program of state guarantees for the provision of free medical care to citizens.

Such measures are expected to reduce infant mortality by 15 percent.

Currently, babies are being tested for five hereditary diseases in the maternity hospital.

For 15 years, 20 million children were checked, diseases were detected in about 15 thousand.

In Russia, neonatal screening began in 1993, starting with only two diseases.

Author: Rozaliya Valeeva