Testing Of Babies For Inherited Diseases

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31781, 11 September 1968, Page 2

Testing Of Babies For Inherited Diseases

(NZ. Press Association)

AUCKLAND, Sept. 9. A large-scale screening of newly-born infants for several inherited diseases that can lead to intellectual handicaps is to begin in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands under the direction of Professor R. Guthrie, a world authority on child health from the department of pediatrics at the State University of New York.

He arrived at the week-end to spend nine months in New Zealand and will work in Dunedin with the human genetics research unit at Otago University. His visit has been financed by the New Zealand Medical Research Council, the McKenzie Family Foundation, the Intellectually Handicapped Children’s Society, and the Otago Savings Bank. He was the originator of the Guthrie tests, already carried out in all maternity hospitals in New Zealand for detecting various genetic diseases and has brought with him a new machine, used so far in only four centres in the United States. This introduces automation

into the tests. It will be used in Dunedin. The disease most frequently tested for is phenylketonuria.

This disease has been found in every country where it has been screened for, said Professor Guthrie in Auckland today. His work in Dunedin would Involve applying a larger number of tests than was possible before to as many new-ly-born infants in this country and the Pacific Islands. He was interested to see what pattern would emerge from the islands tests, as they would be dealing with isolated peoples with little outside influence in their breeding. Blood specimens would be collected from infants by doctors and health workers in the islands. These would be flown to Dunedin.

About 100 inherited diseases that could affect the brain had now been identified, but little was known about many of them yet because mass screenings had been rare. In many cases doctors could intervene before damage occurred. Tests are made with minute samples of blood, allowed to

dry on filter paper. With the new apparatus, known as a punch index machine, a number of these samples from one infant can be placed on a single filter card, in prearranged positions. The machine then punches a piece out of each blood sample and analyses each for a different disease. Eight or more tests can be done simultaneously, one technician being able to do the work that would otherwise require several.