Chinese University of Hong Kong to offer free autism test for 200 young children
The Chinese University of Hong Kong will offer free autism screening for 200 young children with suspected symptoms under a pilot project using a newly developed tool that tests stool samples and can provide results as quickly as one week later. Researchers at the university said on Wednesday that they and a spin-off company, MicroSigX,…
The Chinese University of Hong Kong will offer free autism screening for 200 young children with suspected symptoms under a pilot project using a newly developed tool that tests stool samples and can provide results as quickly as one week later.
Researchers at the university said on Wednesday that they and a spin-off company, MicroSigX, would start screening children between the ages of 18 months and four years from January next year.
Professor Ng Siew Chien, an associate dean at the institution’s medical faculty who helped develop the tool, said the technology would be something “parents could easily use at home” to help identify children with autism.
“Now we can effectively rule out those children who have no risk, and we can channel our energy and the whole system to help those at high risk,” she said.
The researchers cited a figure from a paper published in The Lancet Psychiatry this year that indicated Hong Kong currently had more than 22,000 children diagnosed with autism, part of an upwards trend in recent years.
The team said the screening tool could analyse a small faecal sample for various microbial signatures such as bacteria, archaea, fungi and viruses before the data was processed using an artificial intelligence-based model to generate an autism risk score.
The researchers said the tool had a sensitivity level of 91 per cent. The samples could be collected at home and sent to a laboratory, with the results ready in seven to 10 days, they added.
