World Children’s Day was first established by the United Nations in 1954 as Universal Children’s Day and is celebrated on 20 November each year to promote international togetherness, awareness among children worldwide, and improving children’s welfare.

Italy has recently introduced the most extensive newborn screening programme in Europe, aligned with EURORDIS’ 11 Key Principles to a harmonised approach to newborn screening published earlier this year.

The SMA NBS Alliance is proud to present François Boemer‘s latest article presenting the last 3 years of work: the implementation of neonatal screening for spinal muscular atrophy in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation! Or how a pilot project becomes an official programme. Congratulations and a big thank you to all the researchers and clinicians in Belgium who helped make newborn screening for SMA a reality in Southern Belgium!

The European Alliance for Newborn Screening in SMA, led by SMA Europe, is proud to announce that as of 1 September 2021, newborn screening has begun nationwide in Norway for all babies born from that day forward. The link to the official news in the Norwegian language can be found here: https://lovdata.no/dokument/LTI/forskrift/2021-06-11-1874