Prevalence of Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD) Deficiency in India: A Systematic Review

Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency is the most common enzyme deficiency of human erythrocyte affecting more than 400 million people worldwide. In India, G6PD deficiency was first reported in 1963 and since then various investigations have been conducted across country. The objective of this work was to study the prevalence of G6PD deficiency in different ethnic, caste and linguistic groups of Indian population. A systematic search of published literature was undertaken and the wide variability of G6PD deficiency has been observed ranging from 0% - 30.7% among the different caste, ethnic, and linguistic groups of India. It was observed that the incidence of G6PD deficiency was found to be considerably higher among the tribes (9.86%) as compared to other ethnic groups (7.34%) and significantly higher in males as compared to females.