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| Jeff Kiersch holds son Jagger, diagnosed with SCID Hyoung Chang, Denver Post |
Colorado’s newborn screening program began screening for
Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, or SCID, on February 1.
Two weeks later, a baby with SCID was identified. This certainly defies
the odds. CDPHE expected to screen as many as 100,000 babies before finding
a case of SCID. In this case, we had only screened 2,000 babies.
Children with SCID are born without any immune
system. If a baby with SCID has a successful bone marrow transplant, the
stem cells in the bone marrow create an immune system and he can be cured and
live a full, healthy life. The first baby with SCID to be treated with a
bone marrow transplant is alive and well into his 50s. Children with SCID
who are not diagnosed at birth and miss the opportunity to have a
life-saving bone marrow transplant, typically die from persistent infections during the first year of life.
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