The instant that toddler Khobi Jerome hears the opening notes of any song from Frozen, she’s up on her feet ready to perform, pulling her mother up to join her. But Khobi would have been left profoundly deaf for life, had she not been given a world-first bedside genetic test minutes after she was born in Manchester.
Her mother Mary Kho-Ogden shakes her head in disbelief as she watches her 21-month-old daughter: “I can’t imagine Khobi without her hearing. She is so very ‘out there’ and babbles to everyone. She would be a completely different baby from the one she is now.”
The fact that Khobi can hear normally is because she was given a simple cheek swab test immediately after her birth, which 20 minutes later indicated that Khobi carries a genetic variant that meant she would go instantly and profoundly deaf if given the antibiotic gentamicin.
Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/news/health/simple-genetic-test-newborns-prevent-deafness-1543811
