Congratulation! TFRD Gets the Yuen-Shu Award

TFRD Has Been Awarded the Yuen-Shu Award Among Non-indigenous Groups

Taiwan Foundation for Rare Disorders (TFRD) has continuously served for aborigines for many years. The foundation has been given the Yuen-Shu Award by Aborigines Association of the Executive Yuan, which represents the highest honor of remarkable contributions toward aborigines. On November 25th, the award ceremony was held in the international conference hall of Physics Department, National Taiwan University. 51 people and organizations are given the awards, and each of them has deep impact on the aborigines’ society and culture heritage.

The second year after TFRD was founded, we have promoted the Expended Newborn Screening Pilot Project. With the blood from the newborns’ heels, almost 30 kinds of inborn error metabolic diseases could be detected. Due to lacking of certain enzyme, the children with inborn error metabolic cannot metabolize foods efficiently by themselves. If this kind of diseases can’t be discovered as early as possible, and supplemented by medicine or special nourishment, it may cause the patients intellectual or physically handicapped, which might leads to growth or mental retardation, or even death. Therefore, TFRD is dedicated to establishing the Expended Newborn Screening system, and introduce the newest screening technology, “Tandem Mass Spectrometry.” In order to keep tabs on the health of the newborns in Taiwan with more convenient and faster way.

It’s been 14 years, TFRD has constantly subsidized the aborigines and economically disadvantaged families for taking the newborn screening. There are totally 107,538 people have benefited from this subsidization, the screening fee is up to 25,948,250 dollars, and over 500 aborigines newborns have been diagnosed with the inborn error metabolic diseases. The 13th Yuen-Shu Award is an encouragement for our long term service. Ms. Ruth Kuan-Ju Chen, the Executive Director, represented TFRD to accept the award. TFRD is going to keep caring on the health of all newborns, and support the rare disorders families.

Translator: Ellen Kuo (OI), Reviewer: Sandy