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Sickle cell anaemia is a common and widespread haemoglobinopathy with large clinical heterogeneity. The present study, was undertaken to determine seven different haematological parameters (Haemoglobin percent, RBC count, PCV, MCV MCH, MCHC, Reticulocyte count) on total 102 heterozygous (SA) and homozygous (SS) sickle cell children under six years of age. In addition, fetal haemoglobin (HbF) level was estimated in SS children and correlated with clinical status, gender and ethnic background. Mean HbF was 16.79%. Higher HbF level was associated with less severe clinical feature. HbF was not influenced by gender and ethnic background. In homozygous children mean values of MCV, MCH, MCHC were decreased while reticulocyte count was increased as compared to control (AA) children and (SA) children (P < 0.05) We conclude that, in sickle cell disease, HbF was a good prognostic indicator. Higher HbF level along with microcytic hyopochromic indices and lower MCHC was found to be a feature of the study population.

Beta-Thalassemia is prevalent in a high frequency of 5-15% in selected geographical areas and ethnic communities. There is need to screen large populations for the heterozygotes of beta-Thalassemia. We have evaluated NESTROFT (Naked eye single tube red cell osmotic fragility test) with 0.36% buffered saline in this study. Of the population screened, 42 cases were positive with NESTROFT, of which 40 were positive with the confirmatory test for beta-Thalassemia. This implies a positive predictive value and specificity of 100%, negative predictive value of 83.3% and sensitivity of 95.2%.