Prevalence of sickle cell trait in four tribal communities of Visakhapatnam district

Sickle cell disease is a commonest single gene disorders and the clinical course is highly variable ranging from frequent severe pain crisis and life threatening complications that can result in early childhood death to infrequent pain and only mild temporary symptomology. It is prevalent in some of the communities in Africa, America, Middle East and East Asia and its distribution varies geographically and from community to community. In India the prevalence of sickle cell trait varies from 0.8-45% among many tribal populations from different states. A cohort of 628 randomly selected unrelated individuals aged between 16-71 years from four different tribal communities of Visakhapatnam District was studied to analyze the prevalence of sickle cell anemia. All the 628 individuals were tested for red blood cell indices, sodium meta-bisulphate slide test and cellulose acetate electrophoresis. The total prevalence of sickle cell gene has been found to be 9.71% among the studied sample. The individual community distribution is 1.69% among Konds, 14.36% among Bagatas, 7.8% among Konda Doras and 13.59% among Konda Kammaras.