Prevalence of Haemoglobinopathies in Children Presenting with Anemia at DHQ Hospital Zhob, Balochistan

OBJECTIVE: To find the prevalence of haemoglobinopathies in children presenting with anemia at District Headquarter Hospital Zhob. METHODOLOGY: The cross-sectional study was carried out at District Headquarter Hospital (DHQ) Zhob from March to August 2021. Patients aged 6 months to 15 years presented with signs and symptoms of anemia were included in the study and investigated for haemoglobinopathies throughcomplete blood count, peripheral smear, iron studies (serum ferritin), haemoglobinanalysis by haemoglobinelectrophoresis, high-performance liquid chromatography and sickling test. All the data, including age, gender, and diseases was recorded and analyzed with the help of a statistical package for social sciences (SPSS 21). RESULTS: A total of 2258 children were clinically suspected of anemia and were advised the sequential blood tests for diagnosing Haemoglobinopathies. Out of these, 239 cases lost to follow up. The remaining 2019 caseswere included, comprising1026 males (50.81%) and 993 females (49.18%) with a mean age 8.09±3.78 years. Haemoglobinopathies constituted 8.9%ofpediatric diseases and 56.7% of anemia cases. The most common haemoglobinopathy was beta-thalassemia major (29.4%), followed by sickle / beta-thalassemia compound heterozygous (28.3%), sickle cell disease (28%), HbH“alpha thalassemia” (2.8%), HbD trait (2.3%), HbE/Beta-thalassemia (2%), HbD Homozygous (1.8%), HbD/beta-thalassemia (1.5%), HbE trait (1.1%)and Beta-thalassemia minor (0.9%). There were 11 cases (1%) reports labeled as borderline. CONCLUSION: Haemoglobinopathies constitute a major portion of diseases and the most common cause of anemia in the pediatric population of Zhob.