Samilchuk and Al-Awadi (1999) screened 165 unrelated Kuwaitis for the CYP2C19*2 and CYP2C19*3 polymorphisms. Thirty individuals carried the CYP2C19*2 polymorphism (28 heterozygous and 2 homozygous), while CYP2C19*3 was detected in only one individual. Samilchuk and Al-Awadi (1999) calculated the incidence of CYP2C19*2 variants to be 0.096 among the Kuwaiti population.

[Samilchuk E, Al-Awadi S. Genetic polymorphism of drug metabolizing enzymes: Analysis of Cyp2C19 variants in Kuwaitis. Health Sciences Poster Day, Faculty of Medicine, Kuwait University, 1999, Kuwait]

Luo et al. (2004) studied a Bedouin population consisting of 50 individuals. They identified the CYP2C19*3 gene in one Bedouin individual in a heterozygous state (CYP2C19*1/*3) while another had the CYP2C19*2 allele (linked with poor metabolism) in homozygous form.

Evans et al. (1995) studied the frequency of the CYP2C19 alleles among Saudi Arabian and Filipino volunteers. The study included 102 healthy Saudis (92 males, 10 females) with an average age of 25 years. Two Saudi volunteers were found to have poor metabolism (PM) phenotype, while the other 100 were extensive metabolizers (EM) of the S-mephenytoin. The frequency of the recessive allele among Saudis was 0.140.SE 0.049.

Al-Jenoobi et al. (2013) analyzed the genomic DNA of 192 healthy unrelated Saudi Arabian individuals to determine CYP2C19 polymorphism.  Genotype frequency and allele frequency of the CYP2C19 variants CYP2C19*2, *3, *4, *6, *7 and *17 were noted.  A total of 29 individuals (15.3%) were found to carry the heterozygous genotype of CYP2C19*2 and one individual (0.5%) was found to be homozygous for the defective allele.  The allelic frequency of CYP2C19*2 was 8.2%.  In the case of CYP2C19*17, 69 individuals (37.5%) were found to be heterozygous while 15 individuals (8.1%) were homozygous for the defective allele.  The allelic frequency of CYP2C19*17 was 26.9%.  The poor metabolizer alleles of CYP2C19*3, *4, *6 and *7 were not detected in the study.  A previously unreported non-synonymous SNP G356A was discovered to have an allelic frequency of 50%.  In-situ analysis predicted this SNP to be benign.  Another rare SNP C336T was found to have an allelic frequency of 50.3%.  Both SNPS were located in exon 3.