Haemoglobinopathies and newborn haemoglobinopathy screening in Germany.

Dickerhoff, R.; Genzel-Boroviczeny, Orsolya and Kohne, E. (2009): Haemoglobinopathies and newborn haemoglobinopathy screening in Germany. In: Journal of clinical pathology, Vol. 62: p. 34

Abstract

Germany has been an immigration country since the early 1950s. In December 2007, 6.7 million non-German citizens lived in the country. However, the total number of citizens with a migration background is 15–20 million, about 9 million of whom come from countries where sickle cell disease and thalassaemias are frequent. In a country with 82 million inhabitants health authorities are not worried by the presence of probably 1000–1500 sickle cell and 450 transfusion-dependent thalassaemia patients, and therefore no screening or preventive measures have been taken so far on a national scale. There are plans for a pilot project (1 year) to screen all newborns for sickle cell disease in obstetric hospitals in 4–5 cities with more than 20% migrants. Funding and lack of an infrastructure to provide counselling are major problems.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Form of publication: Publisher's Version
• Faculties: Medicine
• Subjects: 600 Technology > 610 Medicine and health
• Alliance/National Licence: This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.
• Language: English