“…Sri Lanka, a tropical island of approximately 19 million people, has a population comprised of Sinhalese (74%), Tamils (18%), Moors (7%) and several minor groups including a small number of the original island occupants, the Veddahs. Since 1951, there have been sporadic reports of the occurrence of thalassaemia and haemoglobin variants, including haemoglobin E, in most populations (de Silva & Weeratunge, 1951; Graff et al , 1954; Lehmann, 1956; Nagaratnam et al , 1958; de Silva et al , 1962; Nagaratnam & Sukumaran, 1967; Parameshwaran, 1967; Blackwell et al , 1974; Ellepola et al , 1980; Nagaratnam, 1989). In 1996, we began to assess the potential future health burden that thalassaemia might pose for Sri Lanka, and to attempt to better understand the natural history and clinical heterogeneity of haemoglobin E thalassaemia in this population.…”