Study design and data collection

This is a retrospective, cross-sectional study which was approved by the Bioethics Committee of the Honduran Social Security Institute (protocol 133-CB-HE) and the Human Research Ethics Committee at the Federal University of São Carlos (process 4,105,553, CAAE 31257020.3.0000.5504).

Information on the neonatal screening program carried out in Honduras in 2018 and 2019 was obtained directly from the Central Laboratory of Specialties at the IHSS. Data was uncovered about municipality of collection, age of the newborn when the screening was performed, methodology used in each laboratory assay, and results of the program (numbers of newborn screening performed, missing samples, and disease detected).

Additionally, the Statistics Department of IHSS (personal communication) and the National Statistics Institute (INE 2020) and the Knoema Enterprise (Knoema 2020) websites were consulted to obtain demographic data, such as the number of births in the IHSS, the total Honduran population, and the national birth rate. These data allowed us to estimate the coverage of neonatal screening by IHSS, the number of births in the country, and the national coverage of neonatal screening.