New diagnostic centre for 'bubble babies'

MUMBAI: The Institute of Immunohaematology (IIH), which comes under the Indian Council of Medical Research, will start a centre to detect congenital Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID) in children.

Children afflicted with SCID are called "bubble babies". Although the number of children suffering is found to be large in the country, there is no systematic investigation or proper registry of these bubble babies, which would enable systematic healthcare for them, Director of IIH, K Ghosh told.

In order to investigate the number of cases and establish a country-wide registry, a beginning will be made soon in setting up a diagnostic centre at IIH.

"We will work in collaboration with Wadia children's hospital in Mumbai as they get at least 200 children affected with SCID," Ghosh said.

Already, IIH has sent one of its scientists to the UK to get trained in diagnosis.

"Once we succeed in establishing the centre and the technique in Mumbai, we will go for a country-wide registry and expand centres in other parts," he added.