The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of alpha-thalassaemia in the population of Egypt. This was achieved by screening 1002 healthy blood donors donating blood at Kasr Ani Hospital, Cairo University, for the presence of unexplained microcytosis (less than 75 fL). After exclusion of iron deficiency anaemia and beta thalassaemia genetic analysis was performed aiming to detect alpha thalassaemia if present and determine its molecular characterisation for Egyptians using a simple PCR method. This work also involved the molecular study of 2 families (1 alpha thalassaemia carrier and 1 patient and their family members). For the molecular diagnosis of α thalassaemia a specific strategy to detect the deletional α-thalassaemia deletions (-α3.7, -α4.2, --MEDI) and non-deletional (α-5nt and α-PolyA) is used. Screening of the 1002 adults donating blood subjects studied for the presence of microcytosis showed the presence of iron deficiency in 3 subjects giving a prevalence 0.3% in the 1002 adults donating blood and β-thalassaemia trait in 3 subjects giving a prevalence of 0.3% in the 1002 adults donating blood. Alpha thalassaemia yielded a prevalence of 0.4%. Molecular study of these traits showed them to be carriers of the following mutations –α3.7 (in 2 subjects with a prevalence of 0.2% in the 1002 adults donating blood). The –MEDI and –α20.5 mutations were detected in the other two subjects each giving a prevalence of 0.1% in the 1002 adults donating blood.Diagnosed carrier and patient of alpha thalassaemia using two families (family 1 and family 2) showed the family 1 to be carriers of –MEDI ;whereas, family 2 showed the patient to have homozygous deletion of α-5nt and heterozygous deletion α-5nt for his parent and siblings.