Blood Groups in Thai Blood Donors

Abstract

Abstract: Blood groups are important for safe transfusion practice. Frequency of several blood groups in mongoloid population are different from those in Caucacians. This report studied major and minor blood groups in the Thai population by typing antigens in blood donors of National Blood Centre, Thai Red Cross Society. Material and Methods: Blood samples from Thai volunteer blood
donors at the National Blood Center, Thai Red Cross Society, were randomly tested for red cell antigens which included ABO, Rh, MNSs & Mi^a, P, Kell, Kidd, Diego, Dutty, Xg^a systems using standard antisera and methods. Frequency of each allelotype was reported in proportion to the number of individuals typed for each blood group system. Genotype frequencies were estimated
using Hardy-Weinberg priniciples. Results: Of 1,382,980 donors ABO-typed, blood group O was the most common (37.7%), phenotype followed by group B (33.6%), A (21.4%), and AB (7.3%). Of 1,381,221 donors, the frequency of Rh alleles were 99.69% D-positive. Among 5,122 Rh(D)-positive donors with complete Rh phenotype data, the frequencies of Rh alleles were 83.7% C-positive, 48.3% c-positive, 38.6% E-positive, and 87.4% e-positive, genotype CDe was the most common (0.5779), followed by cDE (0.2779), cDe (0.0598), and CDE (0.0357). Rh(D) was negative in 0.3% and weak D were 0.01% of Thai donors. Among other minor blood group antigens, Thai donors had high gene frequency of Fy^a (0.87), k (0.99), Di^b (0.99), resulting in high proportion of phenotypes Fy(a+b-) (76.7%), kk (98.2%), and Di(b+)(99.94%). Thai donors were heterogenous for antigen of Kidd system (JK' allele = 0.51, JK(a+bt) = 50.3%), Xg system (Xg(at) 44.4% in male, 66.7% in female), P system (P + 31%) and Mi' (Mi(a+) 9.1%). Conclusions: Blood groups distributions in Thai donors were similar to those in other mongoloid population but different trom Western or Negroid population. These data would be helpful in the long-term management of chronic transfusion patients.