Severe Combined Immunofeficiency (SCID)

1. By: Alixa Rodriguez Severe Combined Immunofeficiency (SCID)

2. What is the disease • It is mostly an immune deficiency disease

3. Is there a test to check if you have inherited it • Yes, parents who have children or are planning to have children should consider genetic counseling and early blood testing

4. What causes the disease These infections are usually serious, and may even be life threatening, they may include pneumonia, meningitis or bloodstream infections. Children affected by SCID can also become ill from live viruses present in some vaccines. These vaccines (such as Chickenpox, Measles, Rotavirus, oral polio and BCG, etc.) contain viruses and bacteria that are weakened and don’t harm children with a healthy immune system. In patients with SCID however, these viruses and bacteria may cause severe, life-threatening infections.

5. Is there a cure or method to slow down the disease’s progression • SCID is a pediatric emergency. When a child is diagnosed with SCID, a referral typically is made to a doctor who specializes in treating immune deficiencies usually a pediatric immunologist or pediatric infectious disease expert. Children with SCID can only receive blood transfusions with blood that has been irradiated to kill white blood cells, because live white cells might attack the body.

6. Symptons • Ear infections • Sinus infection • Oral infection(a type of yeast infection in mouth) • Skin infection • Pneumonia • Infants with SCID have chronic diarrhea

7. Extras • SCID is often called “bubble boy disease”. SCID became widely known during the 1970′s and 80′s, when the world learned of David Vetter, a boy with X-linked SCID, who lived for 12 years in a plastic, germ-free bubble.

8. Recourses • http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/allergies/severe_immunodeficiency.html • http://www.genome.gov/13014325 • http://www.scid.net/