Tehran Times  - 161 people out of all blood donors in Iran have been identified as having ‘very rare’ blood types, said the spokesperson of the Iranian Blood Transfusion Organization (IBTO).

According to Bashir Hajibaigi, another survey within the framework of “national plan of rare blood types” revealed that out of 40,000 blood samples collected from different ethnic groups all over the country, 1700 people have ‘rare blood types’, ISNA reported on Wednesday.

A rare blood type is any blood type that is difficult to find in the population where you may need that ‘rare’ type of blood.

An individual’s blood type is considered to be ‘rare’ if only one other person in 1,000 lacks the same antigens or shares the same uncommon antigens. A person’s blood type is considered ‘very rare’ if only one person in 10,000 has or lacks similar blood antigens.

“We selected a group of people with rare and very rare blood types based on our requirements and facilities; then we refrigerated samples of their blood, so that we can use them whenever a patient in any healthcare center needed such rare blood types,” Hajibaigi explained.

“By using the refrigerated samples, we managed to send 121 samples of rare or very rare blood types to the patients who needed them since the beginning of last year [March 2017],” he further noted.

According to Hajibaigi, the IBTO has set up blood bank refrigerators in the immunohematology departments and is running the “national plan of rare blood types” to ensure that patients who need rare blood types will have instant access to them.

He added that the blood bank refrigerators will soon be equipped with a data storage system so that a comprehensive network of data about people with rare and very rare blood types are established.