Consanguinity and incidence of thalassaemia in Egypt

Abstract

The estimated incidence of first-cousin marriages in the Egyptian population was 22 %, corresponding to a minimum inbreeding coefficient of 0.0137. Consequently, with a β thalassaemia gene frequency of 0.016, the expected incidence of β thalassaemia homozygotes should be 0.00047. The expected prevalence of β thalassaemia sick children should be some 4,800. The results were based on a random sample of 505 healthy Egyptians, 16–55 years of age.