PerkinElmer said on Friday that it has donated technology to a Ghana Health Services initiative that aims to increase the country’s screening of newborns for sickle cell disease (SCD) from its current level of 4% of all babies born in the country to 50% by 2030.
PerkinElmer said its contribution of scalable laboratory solutions is enabling the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research at the University of Ghana to be a Center of Excellence and National Training Center for SCD newborn screening with the ability to build screening capacity for an additional 50,000 babies annually.
The firm added that it is donating Migele Gel Electrophoresis Systems, which use isoelectric gel electrophoresis, to support Ghana’s need for reliable, fast, and cost-efficient SCD screening.
With the government’s desire to enact a countrywide screening program, the PerkinElmer solution’s flexible and scalable design can meet growing high-capacity requirements as screening coverage and sample volumes increase, the firm said.
PerkinElmer added that as part of its commitment to the Sub-Saharan African region, it has teamed with the Novartis Africa Sickle Cell Disease program with the aim of expanding advocacy efforts to educate patients, caregivers, and communities about the importance of newborn screening and early intervention with hydroxyurea and other SCD treatments.
