Primary Immuno Deficiency, PID for short,
labels hundreds of congenital disorders of the immune system.

What does it mean to have PID? What's it like if someone in your class has PID?
We asked some young experts:

Lucy

Lucy is 6. She has had to miss a lot of fun things in kindergarten, but now she gets her weekly shot, she is sick much less often than she used to be.

Thieu

Thieu is 10. He loves to play soccer and ride his horse. Each week he gets his dose of extra antibodies and antibiotics.

Anna

Anna is 14 and one of the biggest fans of the Ghent soccer team. Anna knows that everyone has their story, her story involves PID.

Zainab

PID... Puree Is Dry?

Elementary school teacher Matthias has run out of luck. 'Why me?' he thinks, when he hears one of his new pupils has PID. His classroom will never be the same again. Everything will be different. At least that's what he thinks.

His colleague Veronique fends many of Matthias' prejudices and looks for a silver lining in a situation where there seem to be only losers. At least, that's what she thinks.

'Puree Is Droog' (Puree Is Dry) is a funny play, written by Mattijs Degrande, starring Mattijs Degrande and Ellen Desmet - both parents of children with PID.

Would you like to see the full documentary?

In a short documentary (15 minutes) you will discover what PID is, and what it means to some young patients. The mini docu is available for free, and ideally suited to watch in school together with your teacher and class mates.

Version with the younger kids Version with the older kids

PID research in Flanders

VIB Grand Challenges

The VIB Grand Challenges program aims to increase the societal impact of research. A multidisciplinary team of experts from Ghent and Leuven sets out to tackle PID.

Learn more about Grand Challenges

Better diagnostics

There is an urgent need for better diagnostic tools to help identify and stratify patients, so they can get the right treatment, faster.

Understanding PID

In a nutshell

Discover how and why researchers would like to track rare immune diseases.

Q&A

PID is relatively common, but the causes are diverse. To date, more than 400 different forms of PID have been described.

Isabelle Meyts

KU Leuven / UZ Leuven

We estimate that approx. 80% of cases still goes undiagnosed. That is why we need more fundamental research.

Filomeen Haerynck

UGent / UZ Gent

With VIB's Grand Challenges program, we bring together specialists from different disciplines to tackle societal challenges. For PID, we want to improve diagnostics, but also to identify new forms of the disease.