Azerbaijan to begin center for children with Down syndrome in 2010

From News.az:

Down syndrome is a congenital disease. Its frequency is 1.5-3.4 per 1000 newborns.

The risk of giving birth to a child with Down syndrome is growing with mother's age.

111 children below 16 with Down syndrome have been registered in the Baku children neurological dispensary alone. The number of newborns with this diagnosis is growing in Azerbaijan. The number of children with this syndrome born to young mothers from marriages between relatives has recently grown in the country.

Sabir Hasanov, chief of the general service department of Baku Narimanov district executive powers, told that there is a plan to build a center for such patients in the Narimanov district in 2010.

Gulnara Musabeyova, head doctor of the Baku children's neurological center, considers that the new center will help provide a more effective help to those who suffer from this syndrome. "Perhaps, owing to this care, the Down syndrome patients will become the full members of our society like in European countries", she said.