When ethnology informs clinical medicine: non-Bantu peoples without apparent sickle cell disease in the Mbulu area of Northern Tanzania.

However, in the Mbulu area, a rural and very remote region between Lake Eyasi and Lake Manyara in Northern Tanzania, three tribes of non-Bantu origin live among Bantu tribes 3-5 . The Southern Cushitic Iraqw (approximately 500 000 people), are subsistence farmers who probably migrated from Ethiopia several centuries ago 2,3 . The Southern Nilotic Datoga (100 000–200 000people) are nomadic pastoralists, probably of past centuries’ Sudanese origin 2,4 . Although there has been inter-marriage between these two tribes, until recently they have rarely inter-married with Bantu tribes, thus they comprise a largely genetically homogenous group. Of the smallest group, the Khoisan Hadzabe (1000–1500 people) who are believed to be the original hunter-gatherers, virtually nothing is known of their health status 5 .