TABLE 1—

Caribbean Countries Where Newborn Screening and Prevalence of Sickle Cell Disease Data Are Available as of January 2016

Country	Screening Method	Carrier Prevalence (Hb S Trait and Hb C Trait), %	Gene Frequencies	Sickle Cell Disease Incidence
Guadeloupe	Universal screening from 1984	10.5	βS 0.042–βC 0.013	1/304
Martinique	Universal screening from 1984	10.0	βS 0.040–βC 0.012	1/300
French Guyana	Universal screening from 1992	10.0	βS 0.039–βC 0.012	1/235
Jamaica	Screening in the southeast, southern, and western regional health authorities from 1995	15.0	βS 0.055–βC 0.019	1/150
Cuba	Prenatal diagnosis from 1982	3.1	βS 0.011a–βC 0.0036a βS 0.053b–βC 0.006b	NA
Barbados	997 consecutive births (1995)	4.0 (estimated)	NA	1/497
NBS implemented by CAREST associated with the SickKids Caribbean Initiative
Tobago	Universal screening from 2008	12.9	βS 0.098–βC 0.036	1/238
Grenada	Universal screening from 2014
Saint Lucia	Move toward universal screening from 2015
Jamaica	Universal screening in all public hospitals as of December 2015c

Note. CAREST = Caribbean Network of Researchers on Sickle Cell Disease and Thalassemia; Hb = Hemoglobin; NA = not available; NBS = newborn screening. Information was partly obtained from a workshop carried out in April 2006 in Guadeloupe by health professional from Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, Dominica, Guadeloupe, French Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Dominican Republic, and Trinidad and Tobago.^5–8

^aFigures for western side of Cuba.

^bFigures for eastern side of Cuba.

^cIn collaboration with Ministry of Health and Sickle Cell Trust.