Coordinated neonatal screening programme for haemoglobin disorders is needed

EDITOR—Modell et al's audit of prenatal diagnosis for haemoglobin disorders shows the lack of a public health approach to the issue in the United Kingdom.1

Firstly, numbers of affected births for sickle cell disease in the United Kingdom are not reported and, in fact, are not known. This reflects the lack of a coordinated neonatal screening programme (despite good evidence of the effectiveness of neonatal screening in reducing mortality) and of adequate data …