The aim of the present study was to assess the overall frequency of G6PD deficiency in the Indian population using meta-analysis.
PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar and Springer Link databases were searched for studies that investigated G6PD deficiency in Indian population. If any author studied different sub-populations we treated the study as an independent study.
A total of 72 studies with a total sample size of 38,565 and 2,623 G6PD deficient subjects were included in the present meta-analysis. Meta-analysis was performed in both fixed and random effect models. Meta-analysis with random model showed an overall prevalence proportion as 0.085 (95% CI = 0.070–0.103; p = 0.000; tau = 0.826; I2 = 0.486; Cochran Q = 0.999).
In conclusion the present meta-analysis confirms the overall magnitude of the frequency of G6PD deficiency (8.5%) in the Indian population.