Preventive Medicine Foundation Quality Assurance Program Center ( PMF QAP Center ) has been providing “EQA Program for Neonatal Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase ( G6PD ) Screening Test”using dried blood spot samples collected on filter paper for newborn screening centers since 1999.   More than 50 laboratories ( including 6 reagent manufacturer QA laboratories ) worldwide ( AT, AU, CH, CN, DE, FI, GR, IN, LB, MX, PH, TH, TR, TW, US, and VN etc. ) have participated in the EQA program at present time.

The 10th International Society for Neonatal Screening (ISNS) International Symposium was held in Hangzhou  (China) on  September 19 ~ 22, 2019.    We are glad to have the opportunity to meet and communicate with  participants of G6PD EQA program.

We invited EQA participants who also attended the 10th ISNS international conference to meet us, and held two  EQA participants workshops during the conference.   One was held in English on Sep. 19, the other one was held  in Chinese on Sep. 20.

Twenty-one participants from 8 newborn screening laboratories in five countries including the Philippines, Vietnam, Lebanon, Turkey and Taiwan, and  our partners  from  the Newborn Screening Reference Center (NSRC) N.I.H., U.P. Manila were attended the workshop in English.    Thirty-three participants from 17 newborn screening centers in Taiwan and China  joined the workshop in Chinese.

In these workshops, the QA Technical  Manager ( Ms. Laura Fan ) of  PMF QAP Center reported the EQA program results and discussed the performance of the EQA programs.    The attendees had a lively discussion on several issues about quality control and EQA programs.  Attendees also shared their experience about the challenges G6PD screening laboratories  and interchanged their experiences and ideas.   In addition, we also had collected valued suggestions and comments for improving the EQA program from our participants.