Spectrum of Hemoglobinopathies Among the Primitive Tribes: A Multicentric Study in India. (March 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mohanty, Dipika; Mukherjee, Malay B.; Colah, Roshan B.; Wadia, Mahrukh; Ghosh, Kanjaksha; Chottray, Guru Prasad; Jain, Dipty; Italia, Yazdi; Ashokan, Kumar S.; Kaul, Rajni; Shukla, Deepak K.; Muthuswamy, Vasantha
• Is Part Of: Asia-Pacific journal of public health. Volume 27:Number 2(2015:Mar.)
• Page Start: NP562
• Page End: NP571
• Publication Date: 2015-03
• Subjects: hemoglobinopathies -- anemia -- primitive tribes -- India; Public health -- Pacific Area -- Periodicals; Public health -- Asia -- Periodicals; 362.1095
• DOI: 10.1177/1010539513480231
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1010-5395

Abstract

We evaluated the spectrum of hemoglobinopathies among the primitive tribal groups from 4 states in India. A total of 15 200 individuals from 14 primitive tribal groups were studied by automated high-performance liquid chromatography. The hemoglobin S (HbS) allele frequency varied from 0.011 to 0.120 and the β-thalassemia allele frequency from 0.005 to 0.024. It is interesting to note that a very high HbS allele frequency was observed among the Dravidian (0.060-0.120) and Indo-European (0.060-0.076) as compared with Austro-Asiatic (0.011-0.022) speaking tribal groups. Although statistical analysis of the data did not show any ethnic differences within the states, regional differences were observed between the states for both HbS and β-thalassemia traits. HbS was found to be the most common hemoglobinopathy followed by β-thalassemia. A health plan for identifying sickle-cell homozygotes in the neonatal period with proper medical intervention is desirable.