Mannat was diagnosed with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) when he was just six days old
A
19-month-old Indian-origin boy in Singapore has fully recovered from a rare
life-threatening genetic disorder after a stem-cell transplant, according to a
media report.
Mannat Singh
was diagnosed with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) when he was just six
days old, making him highly vulnerable to even the common flu, The Straits
Times newspaper reported.
Mannat, the
first baby in Singapore to be diagnosed with SCID at birth, successfully
underwent the stem-cell transplant in 2023 before the emergence of SCID
symptoms.
Today, Mannat
is healthy, the paper reported.
He had
Artemis SCID, a rare form of recessive radiosensitive SCID, which meant he
could not be treated with radiation or have certain scans done. Without
treatment, Mannat would not have made it past his first birthday, according to
the Singapore daily report.
His mother
Harminder Kaur, 39, a nurse, recalled the guilt and fear she felt “because I
made him this way”. “I feel life has now returned to normal and we have put the
past behind us,” Kaur said.
“It did not
help our state of mind when his odds were stacked against him,” said her
husband Harminder Singh, 39, an IT consultant.
Mannat's condition was diagnosed at KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) through the National Expanded Newborn Screening (NENS) programme.
The
programme, which started in 2006 with the aim of screening all babies born in
Singapore for metabolic and heritable diseases, was expanded in 2019 to include
five other treatable serious childhood-onset conditions such as SCID and cystic
fibrosis.
“The highest
success is when it is performed within the first three to four months of life,
before the baby develops significant infections. This makes SCID screening at
birth crucial for early diagnosis to actively prevent infection,” the paper
quoted a consultant with the rheumatology and immunology service at KKH as
saying.
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