Perinatal surveillance and prevention of birth defects: Progress Review

Birth defects or congenital anomalies affect an estimated 1 in 33 infants, resulting in 3.2 million children with disabilities related to birth defects every year.  The South-East Asia Region (SEAR) has the second highest prevalence of birth defects in the world- 9% of underfive deaths and 12% of newborn deaths in SEAR were due to congenital anomalies in 2015. As the under-five mortality decreases in the region, the proportionate mortality from birth defects will increase. Birth defects are becoming increasingly important causes of morbidity and mortality, chronic illness and disability in childhood. In SEAR countries with low child mortality like Maldives, Sri Lanka and Thailand birth defects already cause more than 25% of newborn mortality.  

WHO-SEARO has supported Member States to promote primary prevention and improve the health of children with congenital anomalies.  In 2014, WHO-SEARO in collaboration with CDC-USA created an online system to gather perinatal surveillance data via a webbased database (SEAR-NBBD). The surveillance network started with 44 hospitals from India, Bangladesh and Nepal. In the past three years, there has been a steady increase in the number of hospital registered with the NBBD, reaching 221 by December 2016; expanding from 3 to 9 countries. With Indonesia and Sri Lanka joining the network offline in 2016 all except DPR Korea and Timor Leste of the 11 SEAR Member States are now a part of NBBD. Nine countries in the Region have national plans for prevention and control of birth defects.