[Thalassemia and Hansen's disease]

The beta-thalassemia trait was investigated among 165 Brazilians who were unmixed Italian descendants (80 Virchowian patients and 85 normal controls, composed of universitary students). The frequency of the beta-thalassemia trait was 6.25% among the Virchowian patients and 5.88% in the control group. In spite of the similar geographical distribution of both hanseniasis and the gene for beta-thalassemia in Asia, the present data does not support the hypothesis that hanseniasis might have contributed to maintain high prevalence of this allele by selection favouring beta-thalassemia trait.