China Discovers New Blood Type: Type P

A patient with the rare ‘p’ blood type which has a one in a million chance of occurring has been discovered in China. Moreover, the patient’s genetic sequence turned out to be unconfirmed and previously unknown.

On the 7th (local time), the South China Morning Post (SCMP) quoted China’s Modern Express as reporting “During a routine blood test at the Taixing People’s Hospital in Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, eastern China a nucleotide sequence, a component of nucleic acid previously unknown was found in the blood of a person with the ‘p’ blood type.”

Taixing People’s Hospital submitted the genetic sequence to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) in the US, to its genetic information database ‘GenBank’. They received a response last month from the NCBI stating that it was a ‘nucleotide’ sequence that had not been found anywhere in the world before.

The ‘p’ type is a rare blood type in the P blood group, and it is extremely rare among them. The ‘p’ blood type is known to occur in less than one in a million people, and only 12 people in China are known to have the ‘p’ blood type.

The P blood group discovered in 1927 is divided into five types – P1, P2, P1k, P2k, and p – based on the antigens on the surface of red blood cells.

A representative of Taixing People’s Hospital said, “People with such a rare blood type can only receive blood transfusions of the same type,” adding, “Especially during pregnancy, if a transfusion of a different blood type occurs, there is a possibility of miscarriage, so early detection is important.”

By. Da Woon Kim