The UK has unveiled a groundbreaking move: every baby born in England will soon receive a DNA test at birth, under a massive £650 million (approx. K1.5 trillion) health investment aiming to reshape the future of medicine.
The tests will use umbilical cord blood to map out each child’s entire genome, helping doctors detect and prevent hundreds of diseases before symptoms even begin. This upgrade will replace the current heel-prick test, which only screens for nine conditions.
According to Sky News, this initiative is part of the UK’s 10-year NHS transformation plan, shifting healthcare from reaction to prevention and prediction. The rollout will begin with 40 hospitals and gradually expand across the country.
“We’re moving from a sickness service to a health service,” said Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
While the move is being praised as a major step toward personalized medicine, it also raises global debate around genetic privacy, data storage, and whether African countries could ever adopt something similar.
📌 Would Malawi ever introduce such testing at birth?
Would parents accept it—and who would fund it?