“…In the native population of non-endemic countries bthalassaemia has been reported in only small numbers (Hall et al, 1992;Indrak et al, 1992;Ringelhann et al, 1993;Wakamatasu et al, 1994). In Germans also, b-thalassaemia is rare (Betke & Kleihauer, 1962;Kohne & Kleihauer, 1974) with only single case reports of homozygous patients (Graser, 1941;Flatz et al, 1964;Teichgräber & Kleihauer, 1969;Eigel et al, 1989;Kulozik et al, 1991). Molecular data are available only for a small number of patients and mostly Mediterranean mutations have been reported (Laig et al, 1990).…”