Australian researchers are urging more children in Perth’s south to take part in a national trial screening for early detection of childhood diabetes.
The simple at-home finger prick test identifies early stage type 1 diabetes and in its initial roll-out is available in WA only to children in the cities of Canning and Melville.
University of Sydney principal research fellow Dr Kirstine Bell said since the pilot begun 12 months ago, more than 6000 children had registered across the country, including a high number from Perth.
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READ NOW“We’ve had a fantastic response from families,” she said.
“In Melville and Canning specifically, we’ve had 750 children consent to screening.”
Free test kits for families who want to take part in the pilot are available from kidsdiabetesscreen.com.au and Brentwood Pharmacy in Mt Pleasant.
While the screening program will finish at the end of 2023, Dr Bell said a final push for eligible families to take part was important in preventing long-term health complications.
“Type 1 diabetes is really hard to identify, 90 per cent (of those diagnosed) have no family history,” she said.
“The first symptoms are really basic things like irritability, things that can just be end-of-year tiredness or might be mistaken for other minor childhood development stages.
“It’s often either overlooked or takes a long time to get diagnosed.”
In Australia, one in three children are not diagnosed with type 1 diabetes until they develop a life threatening complication and require emergency medical care, according to the University of Sydney.
But Dr Bell said this traumatic time for families was “completely avoidable”.
She said the overall goal of the pilot was for the program to be embedded into national childhood screenings.
“We want to be able to offer type 1 diabetes screening routinely to every child in Australia,” she said.
“Same as we do immunisations or newborn screenings.”