Here, we report on the characterization of a novel human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-B allele, B*5613. The allele was identified in an adult male from North Africa who was suffering from sickle cell anemia. HLA-B*5613 most closely matches to B*5601 differing only by a substitution of three nucleotides of codon 180. Due to this substitution, low-resolution HLA-typing using sequence-specific oligonucleotide hybridization or amplification using sequence-specific primers gave inconclusive results. DNA sequencing confirmed a variation of codon 180 (CTG-->GAC) resulting in an amino acid substitution Leu156Asp.