Magnitude of sickle cell disease in pardhan, gond, kolam, madgi, gowari and banjara individuals of yavatmal district, maharashtra, india

In Yavatmal district the SCD has been investigated in past but unfortunately there is a dearth of detailed data in tribal population. Aims: The present study would prove to be a small effort to find out the actual magnitude of the sickle cell disease in the tribal groups under study Settings and Design: Small screening camps were held in easily approachable villages with the official permissions of the medical facilities available there. Methods and Material: Screenings of samples for the presence of the sickle gene was done by solubility test and confirmation was done by Capillary Electrophoresis. Statistical analysis used: Allele frequency was calculated by using Hardy Weinberg Principle. A dendrogram was drawn as per UPGMA clustering method using Phylip (v 3.69) and MEGA (5.2) Results: The population studied showed 12% prevalence of HbS gene with a higher frequency among the Dravidian language family than the Indo-European language family. Screening results showed more numbers of AS individuals than the SS individuals. The prevalence was found to be more in age group (11-20Yrs) compared to other age groups. The number of affected females was much more than the males. Consanguineous marriages among the parents of affected individuals were found to be important factor to the increased number of SCD individuals. Conclusions: The higher number of AS individuals than SS shows that the disease is spreading at an alarming rate with the major problem of more number of carriers. Dravidians being predominant among the population of Yavtmal, showing higher frequency than the Indo-European group.