A new centre for diagnosing Primary Immunodeficiency Diseases (PID), which affects nearly one in 1,200 people, would come up at the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences within the next six months.
The announcement was made during the ‘ Third Annual Introductory Course in Primary Immunodeficiency Disorders’, hosted at NIMS on Sunday.
The Foundation for Primary Immunodeficiency Diseases (FPID) in collaboration with NIMS would set up the institute. Medical practitioners at NIMS and representatives from FPID said the centre would diagnose PID in both children and adults.
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Nearly 200 disorders are categorised under the umbrella term ‘PID’ which cause the body’s immune system to fail or malfunction.
“In most cases, PID is genetic. Children do not survive long and the cause of death remains unknown if diagnosis is not made. In adults, PID can go undetected for as long as 15 years,” said Sudhir Gupta, president, FPID.
Prof. Gupta’s foundation runs a regional PID centre in Lucknow and a bigger centre in Chandigarh.
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A flow cytometer, which is the required equipment for diagnosing PID, is already available at NIMS.
Training and essential chemical compounds called reagents would be provided by the foundation. The centre would help make a definitive diagnosis of PID.
“We get around 15 to 20 cases of suspected PIDs every week. With the centre functioning, we can make definitive diagnosis and also anticipate the number of suspected cases to increase once the centre becomes functional,” said Prof. Liza Rajasekhar, Head of Rheumatology at NIMS.
Testing for PID involves analysing several components in blood which could take anywhere between two and seven days.
The proposed PID centre at NIMS would make expensive testing affordable.
“PID testing is costly but the new centre would offer the service free of cost to the poor,” Prof. Gupta said.