Anemia and hemoglobinopathies in tribal population of Eastern and North-eastern India

It is estimated that out of approximately 31.4 million people living in North-eastern India, about 8.1 million are tribal people of the hills and plains. Among four of the seven north-eastern states, tribal people are in majority. Arunachal Pradesh is made of approximately 24 major tribal groups, which constitute about 70% of the total population, Tripura 29% and in Assam constitutes 11%. A total of 1726 cases were randomly selected in this study, out of which 1263 cases were from North-east India, namely from Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Tripura and the rest were from West Bengal. Hematological parameters were estimated and agarose gel electrophoresis for identification of the Hb variants was performed. DNA was isolated, amplified and analysed by PCR-ARMS technology. The incidence of anemia among the tribal people of Assam was 59.82%, in Arunachal Pradesh 53.77% and Tripura 57.45%. The presence of hemoglobinopathies and thalassemia account for anemia in a sizeable population of the north-eastern states in certain tribes and urgent health resources are needed to deal with this. HbE appears to be the commonest hemoglobin among the different tribes of north-east.