Large scale screening for haemoglobin disorders in southern Vietnam: implications for avoidance and management.

In order to obtain an approximate assessment of the public health burden that will be posed by the inherited disorders of haemoglobin in southern Vietnam, several thousand individuals were screened for these conditions. A smaller sample was screened for glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency. The important haemoglobin disorders identified were beta thalassaemia, haemoglobin E and a variety of different forms of alpha thalassaemia.