2026 · Pediatric health, medicine and therapeutics · open access
Uganda's Mandatory Newborn Sickle Cell Disease Screening Programme: Translating a Decade of Evidence into Differentiated Implementation
Jonani et al.
The finding, in our words
Uganda has launched a mandatory newborn screening programme for sickle cell disease using dried blood spots, with strategies tailored to different healthcare settings to improve coverage and timeliness. The approach connects screening at birth or immunisation visits to a national laboratory network to enable faster confirmation and care linkage.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
Karnataka reports a significant burden of congenital hypothyroidism and inborn errors of metabolism, yet statewide newborn screening using dried blood spots remains unimplemented despite early pilot studies. Hospital-based programmes dominate, outreach is limited, and while screening a single disorder appears economically feasible at USD 6.45 per child, sustainable implementation requires health systems research to address gaps in awareness, diagnostic thresholds and facility capacity.
Kuriakose et al., PLOS global public health · source ↗
A systematic review found mixed economic evidence for microsampling in therapeutic drug monitoring; one study reported no cost reduction with DBS home-sampling, €688 versus €676, whilst another predicted savings up to 61%. The authors caution that more work is required to assess costs alongside clinical outcomes and optimise logistics for decentralised implementation.
Carland et al., British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (paywalled) · source ↗
A 2025 review maps 28 microsampling devices, from dried spots and volumetric absorptive tips to upper-arm liquid capillary collectors, and names what a laboratory must control before their results are used: the haematocrit effect in non-volumetric dried samples, interstitial fluid from finger milking, volume, haemolysis and transport stability. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic ask for the same two things, a device the patient can use safely and a sample fit for the test.
Over two years, 1,507 participants used in-home capillary blood spot sampling for islet autoantibody screening, with only one reporting collection failure, compared with five failures among 276 venipuncture participants. Blood spot sampling reached younger and regionally based Australians at lower cost and with greater convenience, identifying preclinical type 1 diabetes at expected prevalence and supporting early diagnosis without the barriers of clinic-based venous draws.
Wentworth et al., Diabetes care (paywalled) · source ↗
A feasibility study at a Kathmandu maternity hospital showed newborn metabolic screening using dried blood spots achieved 98.8% parental consent, driven primarily by cost-free participation. Despite pandemic-related transport delays to a central Indian laboratory, results were delivered within two weeks, detecting metabolic abnormalities in 13 of 825 infants, with 90% of healthcare providers endorsing routine implementation.
Khan et al., BMC global and public health · source ↗