Unique blood group found in Gujarat man, first case in India and 10th in the world

A 65-year-old man from Gujarat has been identified with a new blood group, which is India’s first and the world’s 10th unique group, reports said.

The man, who is a heart patient, has been identified with EMM negative blood group, a unique blood type which cannot be categorized into the existing groups of A, B, O or AB.

In general, there are four types of blood groups in the human body, which further consist of 42 types of systems, like A, B, O, Rh and Duffy. There are also 375 types of antigens in which EMM is high.

People with EMM negative blood group can neither donate their blood to anyone, nor can they acquire it from anyone.

Only 10 people with the rare blood group

So far, there were only 9 people in the world with such a rarest blood group. But now, a 65-year-old man from Gujarat's Rajkot has been identified with the said blood group.

How did doctors identify the rare blood group in the man?

The 65-year-old patient who had been undergoing treatment in Ahmedabad after suffering a heart attack was in need of blood for heart surgery.

However, it was when his blood type was not found in the Prathama Laboratory of Ahmedabad, that the samples were sent to the blood donation centre in Surat, said Sanmukh Joshi, doctor at Samarpan Blood Donation Center, Surat.  

After examination, the sample did not match with any group, following which blood samples of the elderly man along with his relatives' were sent to America for investigation.

Subsequently, it was found that the elderly man's blood type was India's first and world's tenth such case of the rarest blood group.

Due to the lack of EMM in the blood, the International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT) has named it EMM negative.

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