地中海贫血(thalassemia)被认为是一种遗传性溶血性疾病，在中国常见于南方。世界上约5%人口是镰状细胞病或地中海贫血基因携带者，其中超过141万人生活在中国广西省。由于中国的社会保障和医疗体系仍在发展，许多贫困地区的患者常常难以负担医疗费用，一个地中海贫血儿童每月用以维系生命的输血和服药费用至少需要2000元（2014）。据统计，中国只有不到4.5%的地贫患者能活过15岁。更严重的局面是，随着国内人口迁移，这种疾病正显示出加速蔓延的趋势。
Mediterranean anemia(thalassemia) is considered a kind of heritable hemolytic disease, occurring relatively often in southern China. Approximately 5% of the world’s population are healthy carriers of a gene for sickle-cell disease or thalassemia, and over 1.41 million live in Guangxi province, China. The cost of keeping one child with thalassemia alive is about 300 dollars per month, since the social security and medicare system in China was still in progress, many patients from deprived areas usually can not afford the costs of their treatment. Statistically, less than 4.5% of children in China can survive past the age of 15. What getting serious is, with the process of population migration, this disease is now making inroads around the country.
—2015
