Providing safe blood and blood products (e.g. packed red blood cells, platelets and fresh frozen plasma) are important measurement in the modern era of transfusion practices. Transfusion of blood and blood products from donor to patient requires matching for several blood group systems which acting as markers of tissue identity. Currently, there are 33 blood systems being recognized by the panels of International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT) with ABO, Rhesus and Kell blood group systems being the most clinically significant in determining transfusion compatibility. The blood group systems are encoded by polymorphic genes within our genomes and their distributions vary between geographically and historically unrelated populations.

Blood group data (i.e. ABO, Rhesus, Kell, Kidd and Duffy) collected for the Malay subethnic groups and earlier study on Malays, Chinese and Indians showed diverse genepools of Malaysian population and thus present a great challenge to blood donor recruitment centres. The local recruitment centres might also need to supply blood or blood products that matched at multiple blood group systems (e.g. ABO, Rhesus, Kell, Kidd, Duffy and MNS) especially to chronically transfused patients and our statistical analyses also showed alloimmunization risk of random blood transfusion is higher for donors and recipients from different ethnic backgrounds. We are now typing the similar set of blood group loci in the aboriginal peoples of Peninsular Malaysia using various molecular techniques and anticipated that the data that will be generated from this blood group screening programme will be wide interest and useful to the general public and health professionals. In particular, knowledge of blood group antigens in various sub-populations in Malaysia is important for planning donor recruitment strategy and for searching for suitable donors especially those with rare blood group profiles.

Hisham A. Edinur
Human Identification Unit, Forensic Science Programme
School of Health Sciences, Health Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia
Kelantan, Malaysia

Publication

Molecular blood group typing in Banjar, Jawa, Mandailing and Kelantan Malays in Peninsular Malaysia.
Abd Gani R, Manaf SM, Zafarina Z, Panneerchelvam S, Chambers GK, Norazmi MN, Edinur HA.
Transfus Apher Sci. 2015 Aug

Read offline:     

Related Articles:

	From complexity to simplicity via microbial division… If someone were to put Nature under a microscope, it would become obvious that microbes are present in all environments on our planet. Microbes are often forced to interact within…
	Can we accurately diagnose different clinical… Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) is the second most common degenerative parkinsonian syndrome after idiopathic Parkinson’s disease. PSP is a clinically heterogeneous disorder with several clinical variants. The two most common…
	UCLA researchers pioneer AI-based tissue staining to… Los Angeles, CA – September 10, 2024 – Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have pioneered a groundbreaking approach in the imaging and detection of amyloid deposits…
	Boosting chicken health with tea extract: a natural… In modern poultry farming, chickens often face stressful conditions such as overcrowding, poor air quality, and contaminated feed. These conditions can lead to oxidative stress, a state where an excess…
	Looking inside the heart: how multiple chronic… The aim of this study was to understand how having several ongoing health problems—what we refer to as multimorbidity—impacts the heart in people with cardiovascular disease, especially those undergoing heart…
	Fatigue assessment strategy using Bayesian techniques The fulfilment of the probabilistic fatigue characterization of materials based on the S-N field requires the definition of the statistical distribution of the percentile curves of the failure probability, interpreted…