Molecular and Genetic Medicine

Incidence of Thalassemia and Sickle Cell Disease in Chhattisgarh, Central India: Using Hardy-Weinberg Equations

Abstract

Sapna Thakur, Ravindra Sharma and Sharada Nandan Raw

Thalassemia and Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) both are genetic blood disorders occurring by destruction in red blood cells (RBCs). Every year about 300,000 infants worldwide are born with Thalassemia syndrome (30 per cents) and sickle cell anaemia (70 per cents. Globally, the percentage of carriers of Thalassemia is greater than that of carriers of SCA, but because of the high frequency of the sickle cell gene in certain regions the number of affected births is higher than with Thalassemia. Due to a large population, and same blood, marriage in many communities, there is always a high chance of genetic disorders in Chhattisgarh which is one of the growing states of India. The incidence of genetic blood diseases in Chhattisgarh is considered high. According to the screened population, it is observed that the prevalence of SCD was 2.1%, sickle cell trait was 10% among different tribes. Also Thalassemia gene is prevalent in different Here we are describing the challenges, including lack of knowledge about genetic disease and less facility faced by parents in the Chhattisgarh his children affected by Thalassemia and SCD. We use Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE), a genetic approach for the prediction of allelic frequencies of SCD and Thalassemia. The aim of this study is to generate carrier frequencies of both the disease using HWE and accepting a number of resources which are useful for the eradication of SCD and Thalassemia from the affected population group.