Father-son duo detected with rarest Para Bombay blood group – Times of India

Nagpur: Dr Hedgewar Blood Bank recently detected a father-son duo in the city with Para Bombay blood group, a rarest phenotype generally present in about 0.0004% (about four per million) of the population.
The detection was done after the father told medical officer Dr Harsha Soni that his blood group is ‘O’ while his son’s has Bombay blood group. Dr Soni insisted on getting blood test done for the son, which revealed that it was not just Bombay blood group but even a rarer phenotype known as ‘Para Bombay’.
Later, the father’s blood was also tested. He too was found to have Para Bombay blood group. Finding people with this blood group in Vidarbha holds significance because now blood banks will have to be more vigilant with people with ‘O’ blood group.
“ABO blood group system is commonly known and we know the blood groups such as ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘AB’ and ‘O’. There is a rare blood group known as ‘Bombay blood group’ first discovered in Mumbai in 1952 (then Bombay),” said Dr Soni.
According to her, people with ‘A’ blood group have ‘A’ antigen in blood while those with blood group ‘B’ have B antigen. “People with ‘AB’ have both A and B antigens while people with the ‘O’ blood group don’t have any of the antigens. There is a third antigen too called H which is present in some quantity in all blood groups, including ‘O’,” she said.
In Bombay blood group, people have H antibodies instead of H antigens. As a result, health complications can arise if the common ‘O’ blood with H antigen is given to people having H antibodies. In the Para Bombay blood group, the blood has H antigen as well as H antibodies. Individuals with this blood group face no complications unless they get blood transfusion.
Dr Soni said that a common lab at primary level will detect this blood group as O only. “This increases confusion. We need a specialized mechanism to test and declare the blood group. We also test saliva of the patients,” she said adding that Dr Hedgewar Blood Bank has reconfirmed these two cases of Para Bombay blood group from National Institute of Immunohematology of ICMR.
Dr Harish Warbhe, expert in transfusion medicine, said that there are a select number of documented cases of Bombay blood group in Vidarbha. “However, the Para Bombay blood group is very rare and hardly documented,” he said and added that Para Bombay blood group is usually misunderstood as ‘O’ blood group.
Even the person in this particular case used to consider himself of ‘O’ blood group and reportedly donated blood three-four times. “Now, we have asked him and his son not to donate blood unless they get a call from the blood bank,” said Dr Soni.
“In case any one of them needs blood, we can arrange the same through the nationwide registry of rare blood groups,” she said.
Significance
Bombay blood group is rare because only one out of 10,000 humans is born with this
Para Bombay blood group is type of Bombay blood group which is even rarer
A father-son duo with Para Bombay blood group found in Nagpur
This means, people with this rarest blood group are there in Vidarbha
In case they need blood transfusion, blood of exactly same group is must for them
Directory of people with rare blood groups is maintained at national-level