The Newborn Metabolic Screening Program

Introduction

The Ministry of Health continues activating the National Newborn Screening Program to eliminate disabilities. This program is designed to detect any genetic diseases that cause serious complications. The program also aims to screen newborns across the Kingdom to secure early detection of hereditary diseases that would cause them serious health complications, including mental and motor disabilities, weak growth, and premature death.

According to MOH, failing to detect and treat such diseases early leads to untold complications, and poses a huge social and mental burden on the child's parents, which the program seeks to eliminate. In addition, the Program aims to screen all the newborns in their first 24-72 hours for all covered illnesses to early detect diseases and provide the needed healthcare as soon as possible; to prevent incurred complications. This Program features one general objective; namely, early screening of the newborn reduces disease and disability rates caused by genetic disorders (endocrine and metabolic diseases covered by the Program). The Program also has detailed objectives, including extending the Program's coverage to include maternity hospitals, boosting the Program's efficiency at all levels, raising the community's awareness about genetic diseases covered by the Program, engaging the community, creating a database of all genetic disorders and ongoing assessment to develop the Program and improve its performance.
According to the MOH, the Program covers 183 hospitals of 188 maternity and children’s hospitals in all. Likewise, the Program adopts an expansion plan to cover private hospitals. MOH pays great attention to awareness raising, through various events and awareness raising campaigns year-round across the Kingdom.