Expanding the comprehensive national neonatal screening programme in the United Arab Emirates from 1995 to 2011.

The national neonatal screening programme in the United Arab Emirates currently includes 16 disorders: congenital hypothyroidism, sickle-cell diseases, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, biotinidase deficiency and 12 amino acid, organic acid and fatty acid disorders. This paper reports data since the programme started in January 1995 up to December 2011 on the incidence of screened disorders and the molecular basis of positive screened cases. Screening used a combination of tandem mass spectrometry, molecular technologies and biochemical analysis.

The National Congenital Anomalies Register in the United Arab Emirates.

The National Congenital Anomalies Register is a population-based register covering all births in the United Arab Emirates. We evaluated the progress of the register and determined the prevalence of congenital anomalies (CAs) and associated maternal and neonatal risk factors. Total prevalence of CAs for 1999-2001 was 7.

Incidence of haemoglobinopathies detected through neonatal screening in the United Arab Emirates.

In January 2002, a pilot programme of neonatal screening for sickle cell disease was launched in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 3 districts of Abu Dhabi emirate. This paper reports the incidence of sickle cell diseases, other haemoglobinopathies and haemoglobinopathy carriers over a 12-month period using high performance liquid chromatography as a primary screening method. The overall incidence of sickle cell disease among 22 200 screened neonates was 0.

Sero-epidemiology of hepatitis B infection in pregnant women in Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Objective: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to evaluate the prevalence of hepatitis B 'e' antigen (HBeAg) and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) in pregnant women in the Gulf States.

Methods: A total of 1710 pregnant women aged 15-45 years were enrolled in June-July 2000 in nine centres across Oman, Qatar and Unite Arab Emirates. The percentage of HBsAg-positive and HBeAg-positive individuals was determined.

Study of mortality risk factors for children under age 5 in Abu Dhabi.

We investigated the association of biological, sociocultural and economic risk factors with child mortality in Abu Dhabi from 1 January-31 December 1997. With McNemar chi-squared test, most selected biological risk factors were statistically associated with child mortality, although maternal age older than 40 years and history of fetal death were not positively correlated with neonate, infant or age under 5 mortality. Among sociocultural and economic risk factors, maternal lack of formal education and low monthly income were significantly associated with child death.