Distribution of ABO & Rh (D) Blood Groups Among Blood Donors of Jammu Region with Respect to Various Ethnic Groups

Background: Out of twenty nine Blood group systems discovered so far, ABO & Rh system is the most important with respect to Blood Transfusion, Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation & Solid Organ Transplantation. Methods: It was a Cross-sectional, hospital based study involving blood donors over a period of one year. Blood donors were divided into five major ethnic groups and ABO & Rh D blood grouping was done by conventional tube technique. Results: Among the total 13,281Blood Donors97.51% donors were male &2.49% were females. 89.09% donors were below 40 years of age with mean age of the 29.87 years. Maximum Donors were Dogras (78.20%) followed by Non Gujjar Muslims (9.28%), Sikhs (5.92%), Gujjars (4.31%)& Kashmiri Pandits (2.30%). The most prevalent ABO phenotype among donors was B (34.85%) followed by O (30.64%), A (24.77%) &AB (9.73%). Out of the total 3291 A blood group, there were 30 cases of A2thus comprising of 0.91%.Among the study group 94.52% were positive for Rh D antigen &5.48% were Rh D negative. Prevalence of Weak D was 0.0075% and among the Rh (D) antigen Negative Blood Donors (728) it was 0.14%. The prevalence of Rh D negative blood donors was highest among Non-Gujjar muslim donors 10.06%, followed by Kashmiri pundits 9%, Gujjars8.22%, Sikhs 6.62%& Dogras 4.60%. In Dogra (34.80%), sikhs(38.80%) and non gujjar muslims(34.98%) donors B blood group was commonest. In Kashmiri Pandits(32.45) and Gujjars(34.09%) the O phenotype was common.To conclude our region is having a blood group distribution trend B>O>A>AB, which does not follow the Asiatic trend of O > B > A > AB with marked differences of distribution among the ethnic groups especially with reference to Rh D antigen.