ABSTRACT
Some populations on New Britain and New Guinea in western Melanesia have high frequencies of thalassemia and/or the glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency; and the westernmost islands of Micronesia, the Palaus, have been found to have almost 10 per cent G6PD deficiency. In New Guinea there is a good correlation between the highlands with no malaria and no G6PD deficiency, and the lowlands with both. The Pacific islands were peopled for the most part from mainland Asia, and to a great extent from areas where populations now have high frequencies of hemoglobin E. Although the abnormal hemoglobins are absent from the aboriginal Pacific populations, the G6PD deficiency has been found on Guam and the Palau Islands. Although much of China has endemic malaria, hemoglobin E has not spread as much to the north as it has out through the Indonesian archipelago.
