Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disorder, or SCID, is a rare genetic disorder in which components of the individual’s immune system is missing. This results in making the victim susceptible to disease without much chance of survival. A simple sickness could be fatal to a SCID patient. In order for these people to live, they must reside in germ-free isolation their whole lives because their immune system can’t fight against bacteria or viruses that may be easy for a person with a normal immune system to overcome. Much work has been done to change the devastating effects of SCID, including gene therapy, which so far, has proven to be successful.
Most cases of SCID are diagnosed within the first few months of life. They are very likely to come down with pneumonia, meningitis, or sepsis, which can be fatal diseases to the young victims. Medication is futile because their immune system does not function properly. They either have irregular or absent B-cells or T-cells, which are the white blood cells that fight off disease. The only possible way for survival is early detection and complete isolation from the germ-infested world.
SCID is considered the worst, most devastating primary immune deficiency out of approximately seventy forms. A primary immune deficiency is when a person doesn’t have a component of a normal immune system, whether it is a specific enzyme or entire organ. SCID is inherited genetically either an X-linked recessive inheritance genetic disease, meaning that the recessive gene was passed from the mother on the X chromosome and only affects the child if the child is male (a female would be a carrier for the disease, like the mother) or an autosomal recessive gene, meaning that the gene is equally contributed from each the mother and father because both have the recessive gene. Because the gene is recessive, if both parents have this recessive gene, they have a one-in-four chance of having an affected child. A very rare chance of obtaining the disease is by way of a genetic mutation. A mutation is a irregularity in the chromosome; neither the mother nor father carries the gene for the disease. Mutations occur completely by chance, and therefore are unpredictable, but extremely rare. One in 100,000 children are born with SCID, either from genetic mutations or from inherited genes from their parents (Tesla 1042).
