Doniya Joson C.1 , Tinju James2
BACKGROUND ABO blood group system was defined based on the presence of blood group antigens present on the cell membrane of erythrocytes. Though human beings possess the same blood group system, the prevalence of blood group system varies markedly across races, ethnic groups etc. This study aimed to look at the prevalence of ABO and Rh blood group among the medical students. METHODS An observational study was conducted to look for the ABO and Rh blood grouping among 1128 undergraduate medical students after getting their informed consent. Blood grouping and Rh typing was done by slide agglutination test using antisera (anti A, anti B and anti D sera) by keeping a control. Blood was mixed with saline to form a red cell suspension, to which antisera were added and checked for agglutination. Red cells-saline mixture acted as a control, which helped to confirm the presence or absence of agglutination. Data was tabulated as frequencies and percentages for categorical data. RESULTS Among the study population, there were 835 (74%) females and 293 (26%) were males. The order of prevalence about the frequency of blood group types were O, B, A and AB respectively. Maximum prevalence was noted with O blood group with 39.5% and the least with AB blood group (6.3%). CONCLUSIONS The most common blood group among this study population is O, followed by B, A and AB. 94% of the group was Rh positive, while the rest of the population was Rh negative.
