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Page 8 of 10 Gonzaga-Jauregui et al. Rare Dis Orphan Drugs J 2024;3:16 https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/rdodj.2024.02

Mexico and other LAC countries should start considering now how to best implement effective and
comprehensive ENBS programs for their populations and in their primarily socialized healthcare systems.
At the same time, governments and health authorities across the region ought to begin considerations for
the implementation of modern and future early disease detection technologies for population health. While
the time for adoption and implementation of MS/MS technologies for ENBS may have passed for the
countries of the region, it is now timely to explore the implementation of the next generation of ENBS
programs through research pilot projects that can assess their effectiveness and feasibility. Ideally, gNBS
should be complimentary to metabolic ENBS using MS/MS; however, in countries where ENBS does not
exist as the standard of care for newborns nationwide, the strategic investment in technologies that can
maximize the benefit for as many newborns, patients, and families as possible should be considered.

Not only will this have an impact on improved health and life expectancy outcomes for newborns at risk,
but it has been proven that early detection of rare genetic diseases is cost-effective for healthcare systems
and societies in the long term [27-30] . Additionally, the ability to know the prevalence of diseases in local
populations and the number of patients with conditions for which there is an available treatment can enable
better national public health planning, budgeting, and price negotiation with pharmaceutical companies for
improved access to treatments and proper disease management. In healthcare systems marked by limited
resources and challenging access to new therapeutics for rare diseases, early diagnoses and interventions
become imperative. Patients treated at advanced stages of a disease are at greater risk of long-term
complications and disability, which not only profoundly impacts the patients and their families, but also the
already constrained healthcare budgets and systems in resource-limited countries such as Mexico and those
in the LAC region.

DECLARATIONS
Authors’ contributions
Made substantial contributions to the conception and writing of the original manuscript: Gonzaga-Jauregui
C, Moreno-Salgado R, Tovar-Casas J, Navarrete-Martínez JI
Provided insightful comments and revised the manuscript: Gonzaga-Jauregui C, Tovar-
Casas J, Navarrete-Martínez JI

Availability of data and materials
Not applicable.

Financial support and sponsorship
None.

Conflicts of interest
All authors declared that there are no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval and consent to participate
Not applicable.

Consent for publication
Not applicable.

Copyright
© The Author(s) 2024.