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Dept of Health

Answer

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will make a statement on (a) the latest statistics for children born with Group B streptococcus infection and (b) his Department's current strategy for dealing with it; [140922] (2) if he will make it his policy to offer all pregnant women a test for Group B streptococcus. [140923] Dr. Ladyman: A 2001 UK surveillance study identified 376 cases of early onset group B streptococcus (GBS). Other studies have estimated that the prevalence ranges from 0.4/1,000 live births to 1.4/1,000 live births in England and Wales. The current position is that routine screening for GBS should not be offered to all pregnant women. The recently published National Institute for Clinical Excellence clinical guideline on antenatal care recommends that pregnant women should not be offered routine antenatal screening for GBS because evidence of its clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness remains uncertain. The UK National Screening Committee (NSC) is currently reviewing the position and has commissioned an assessment of the existing evidence on screening for group B streptococcus in pregnancy against criteria used to assess potential screening programmes to ensure they do more good than harm. The NSC considered a preliminary report of a workshop at its meeting this month and will consider the full report at its meeting in March 2004.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

415 c504-5W; 140922;140923

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Babies Pregnancy Screening Bacterial diseases Streptococcus

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk