Estimates suggest that approximately 1.5% of the global population (80 – 90 million people) are β-thalassemia carriers. However, exact data on carrier rates in many populations are lacking, particularly in developing areas of the world known or expected to be heavily affected. Because of the prevalence of the disease in countries with little knowledge of thalassemia, access to proper treatment and diagnosis can be difficult. While there are some diagnostic and treatment facilities in developing countries, in most cases these are not provided by government services and are available only to patients who can afford them. In general, poorer populations only have access to limited diagnostic facilities and blood transfusions. In some developing countries, there are virtually no facilities for diagnosis or management of thalassemia. Etymology and synonym
The word thalassemia () derives from the Greek  thalassa (θάλασσα), "sea", and New Latin -emia (from the Greek compound stem -aimia (-αιμία), from haima (αἷμα), "blood"). It was coined because the condition called "Mediterranean anemia" was first described in people of Mediterranean ethnicities. "Mediterranean anemia" was renamed thalassemia major once the genetics were better understood. The word thalassemia was first used in 1932.: 877

Society and culture
In 2008, in Spain, a baby was selectively implanted to be a cure for his brothers thalassemia. The child was born from an embryo screened to be free of the disease before implantation with in vitro fertilization. The babys supply of immunologically compatible cord blood was saved for transplantation to his brother. The transplantation was considered successful.
Moreover, vedolizumab treatment was shown to achieve higher percentage of clinical remissions (31.3% vs. 22.5%) in patients with ulcerative colitis in comparison to adalimumab treatment. Crohns disease
In one main study in adult patients with moderate to severe active Crohns disease in whom conventional therapy or TNF-alpha antagonists were ineffective or could not be tolerated, vedolizumab was shown to be more effective than placebo: 15% (32 out of 220) of patients receiving vedolizumab showed improved symptoms after 6 weeks of treatment, compared with 7% (10 out of 148) of patients on placebo. The maintenance of the effect up to 52 weeks was more effective with vedolizumab than with placebo. History
The cell line used to develop vedolizumab was created by physician scientists at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston as a result of work executed in Dr. Robert Colvins lab. This was part of a program to analyze the molecular basis of lymphocyte activation. An antibody was isolated that reacted with long term activated antigen-specific (tetanus toxoid) T-lymphocytes originally isolated from blood lymphocytes. The cell lines were created in Dr. Jim T. Kurnicks lab. Although the antibody did not block primary activation of T-lymphocytes, it appeared late after activation with a number of lymphocytic stimuli, and was named "Act-1" because it was the first activation marker identified by this group of investigators.