The Editor, Sir:

The forthcoming week of celebrations for Victoria Jubilee Hospital serves to focus attention on this great maternity institution and its capacity as a resource for research.

If you look up Victoria Jubilee Hospital on the internet, you will find reference to Haemoglobin F Victoria Jubilee. This was a new foetal haemoglobin variant which implies that the amino acid at position 80 in the gamma chain which is normally aspartic acid has been replaced by tyrosine.

Clinical significance

Like all gamma chain variants, it disappears as the baby gets older and has no clinical significance. Why mention it then? The reason is that detection of this haemoglobin along with others (Hb F Kingston, HbF Port Royal) was made possible by surveys of births at this institution.

Jamaica was the first country in the world to have extensive newborn screening which commenced on June 25, 1973, at the old Victoria Jubilee Hospital when much of the scientific world still believed that it was not possible to diagnose sickle-cell disease at birth. Between then and December 28, 1981, a total of 100,000 births was screened and this was at a time when 15,000 babies were delivered annually by very overworked midwives who maintained superb collection rates exceeding 95 per cent.

Special cohort

All babies with sickle-cell disease were followed in a special cohort study at the Sickle-Cell Unit at the university, a study which continues 36 years later and has taught the world much about sickle-cell disease, improving the management, survival and quality of life of many of the patients.

The success of this study may be attributed to the cooperation and interest of Jamaican patients and their families, to the suitability of an island community for long-term follow-up, but, above all, to the staff of the superb Victoria Jubilee Hospital which continues as a resource for clinical research.

I am, etc.,

GRAHAM R. SERJEANT

Sickle-Cell Trust