Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has allocated Rs. 1 crore to conduct the country's first mass screening of newborns. For this novel project, the ICMR in November 2005 is forming a task force that represents leading clinicians, paediatricians, genetic specialists and lab scientists. Plans are to complete the first phase of the project within two years. The pilot study is expected to cover around 1,00,000 newborns in major cities including Bangalore. The list of hospitals to be covered in the country was not available.

The key objective of the project is to control over 75 per cent of the paediatric mental retardation cases that occur due to lack of an organised medical system to detect metabolic disorders in early childhood, stated sources from India Gandhi Institute of Child Health and Vani Vials Women and Children's Hospital in Bangalore.

A large number of hospitals in Bangalore have already received a communiqué from the ICMR, which provides details about the screening programme that primarily calls to detect 'inborn errors' of metabolism and groups of rare but potentially lethal genetic disorders. The inborn errors of metabolism include the failure of body metabolism caused by the defects in the enzymes involved in the biomedical pathways, explained the sources.

As per the circular, the screening would be conducted in hospitals that attend to the highest number of maternal deliveries. The selection of hospitals would be on the basis of their infrastructure capabilities to conduct genetic counselling as well as diagnosis. Both the private and public hospitals can join the mission on a non-profit basis.

Though the modalities of the project are yet to be finalised, ICMR hopes it can help early detection of such disorders and offer timely treatment. All the expensive tests would be conducted free of cost. The process according to ICMR will be to draw a drop of blood from the heel of a three-day old newborn and dry the same on a filter paper before sending it for screening.

The task force will short list around five to six major disorders which include congenital hypothyroidism and congenital adrenal hyperplasia which are life threatening and disable the infant eventually.

Plans are also been developed to offer medical attention at once if a disorder is detected for the diseases that can be treated. On the basis of the outcome of the pilot project, ICMR will request the Planning Commission to make the test mandatory in all hospitals.