Background: In the last three decades, more than thirty-five thousand Jewish Ethiopian immigrated to Israel. This group has bed showed to have blood counts different from other ethnic groups in Israel, with a higher prevalence of Eosinophilia and Neutropenia. We aimed to evaluate those hematological findings, and define them as familial or as environmental, while seekeing a correlation between them.
Methods: 300 patients from one community clinic in Beer-Sheva with at least one CBC in their medical record. We defined two sub-groups of Ethiopian ethnicity - those born in Ethiopia (EE) and those born in Israel (EI), controled (C) from Israeli and non-Ethiopian immigrants at the same clinic.
Results: Eosinophilia (absolute eosinophil count >500) was found in 13% of the study group. There was a significant difference between EE and the two other groups, (p < 0.05), and no difference between EI and C groups. Neutropenia (absolute neutrophil count < 2000) was found in 32% of EE, 20% of EI , and 1% of C (p < 0.01). No correlation was found between the two phenomena.
Conclusions: The difference between patients with eosinophilia who were born in Ethiopia and the two other groups indicates that there is a marked environmental influence on the eosinophilic response.
The high prevalence of neutropenia in the EE and EI groups indicates the familial-genetic nature of the phenomenon. Furthermore, significantly more prevalent neutropenia is in the EE (vs EI) group, indicates an additional environmental influence.
