Day care facility for children with rare genetic diseases opens at NIMS

Managed by the Department of Genetics at NIMS and the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), the facility will offer essential therapeutic services to children from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh suffering from rare genetic disorders.

Hyderabad: A day care facility to provide healthcare services to children suffering from rare genetic diseases was inaugurated at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) on Friday. The facility, which is being managed by Department of Genetics, NIMS and Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), will provide much-needed therapeutic facilities to children from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh with rare genetic disorders.

The NIMS-CDFD genetics facility is one of the 12 Centres of Excellence (CoE) in India established by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW), New Delhi. The new day care facility will enable care givers at NIMS Genetics department to administer expensive IV infusions and other drugs, as and when they are available and are provided by MOHFW, to children with rare diseases.

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The Genetics department of NIMS-CDFD also provides daily out-patient consultation, genetic counseling, genetic fetal sonography, prenatal diagnostic services and fetal autopsy evaluation.

“In collaboration with CDFD, we also conduct tests to diagnose genetic disorders for patients from TS and AP. The highly expensive treatment modality for children with rare diseases is supported by the Union Health Ministry under the National Policy for Rare Diseases,” additional professor, Genetics, NIMS, Dr Prajnya Ranganath.

The day care facility was inaugurated by Director, NIMS, Dr Nagari Bheerappa in the presence of senior doctors from NIMS and genetic researchers from CDFD.