The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Target: screening newborns for hearing ability within 72 hours

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 17, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Target: screening newborns for hearing ability within 72 hours

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, NOV. 16. The 13th annual conference of the Indian Society of Otology being held here from November 19 to 21 will aim at popularising universal screening of newborns for early identification and correction of hearing problems. The Governor, Surjit Singh Barnala, will inaugurate the conference.

ISOCON-2004, featuring leading ENT surgeons in the country and abroad, will take forward the `prevention is better than cure' idea by focussing on the benefits of `Oto Acoustic Emissions', a simple test used to evaluate hearing ability of newborn children.

Otology experts propose to take up with the Government the need for enacting a law to screen newborns for hearing ability within three days of birth.

Live demonstration

K. K. Ramalingam, organising chairman of ISOCON told a press conference that a highlight of the event would be the live demonstration of a high resolution cochlear implant, the latest development in surgically restoring hearing to total deaf adults and children.

Eminent ENT surgeons, including Didier Portmann from France, Luis Garcia Ibanez from Spain, Fitzgerald O' Connor from U.K. and Claussen from Netherlands are expected to participate.

The conference will also train around 400 ENT surgeons from the country in the finer aspects of middle ear surgery — the mainstay of treatment of most ear complaints.

It is estimated that between 6 and 7 per cent of the Indian population suffer from some form of hearing loss, while roughly 0.1 per cent of the population is congenitally deaf.

However, in spite of its magnitude the problem has not been accorded adequate importance at the level of Government policy, otology experts said. Barely 1.5 per cent of those with hearing problems were able to seek treatment.

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