Little girl needs extremely rare blood type in fight with cancer

Hmmm, why must it be Pakistan/Iranian/Indian blood? And Type O or A? Is that a personal choice to not have other ethnic blood for their children? I've never heard that.

Type O is the most common blood type...and available everywhere...why only those ethnicities? It would seem that it's more than likely that any of those 3 ethnicities that donate would have the type O or A she needed...

 

From the link:

Zainab’s blood is extremely rare because she is missing a common antigen that most people carry on their red blood cells. The antigen is called “Indian B” (Inb). For a person to be a possible match for Zainab, they must also be missing the Indian B antigen, or the little girl's body will reject the blood. Locating people who are missing the Indian B antigen comes down to genetics.

Statistically, the only people who are likely to be a match for Zainab are people of Pakistani, Indian or Iranian descent. Of these populations, less than 4% of the people are actually missing the Indian B antigen.

They've tested over 1000 people and haven't found a match yet.

 

Read the link

 

Other than reading the link, there's a lot more to blood types, she has a type that is missing an antigen (as mentioned above). If you want another example of truly rare/basically "golden blood" look up and read on rhnull, here's a basic link on it https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/the-most-precious-blood-on-earth/381911/ A lot of people will look at the initial title and not understand that there's a lot more to matches for some parts of the population, it's not just AB-/O- or something being able to save the day etc. and it has nothing to do with personal/ethnic choice etc.

What I'm curious on and haven't read up, is if something like rhnull could work, but unfortunately can be even harder to find.

 

I'm really curious about the thought processes that went into this post.

"Hmmm, I don't want to read anything that was posted either here or in the links. But I'm going to make a bunch of assumptions and then question whether the family is racist. And i'll just say the kid actually really needs a really easy-to-find O blood type and question why it's been so difficult."

 

That is a needle in a haystack search.

 

Here's hoping they find a match soon.

 

From the article, they've found 3 donors that are a match. But since it's an ongoing need for her treatment, and a person can only donate so much, they feel they need 10 to be able to have a reliable supply.

 

That would be great, from the snippet, they said to have found 'only' 1000 so far and none was a match.

 

It's a really poorly worded article (the WaPo one):

Now OneBlood is working with the American Rare Donor Program, an organization that connects donors with patients in need across the world. For Zainab, three compatible donors have been found — one lives in London, the other two are in the United States.

That’s a promising sign, but it’s not enough. Rules limit how frequently donors can give blood. Zainab’s doctors would have to line up as many as 10 donors to ensure that whenever Zainab needs a blood transfusion, she can get it.

It is the missing piece of a treatment plan that doctors say is already shrinking Zainab’s tumor.

More than 1,000 people of Iranian, Indian or Pakistani descent have donated blood in an attempt to find matches for Zainab.

It seems they've tested 1000 and 3 have been found compatible, or the compatible ones were found through some other source - not really sure.

 

@daywalker02 @Major When I said no donors found I was going by the oneblood.org link in the OP, great that they've at least found a few so far.

Internet publicity can actually be a force for good when used correctly.

 

Haha, this is perfect

 

Sorry, I clicked on the Oneblood link and read the first page, then clicked on the flyer and didn't still didn't see anything on WHY...I suppose I could've taken the time to scroll down to the bottom of the first page to find out why. Or click on the other pages, but those 2 pages i looked at seemed strangely...evasive... in explaining and I thought the other pages would do the same.

I had administered literally hundreds of units of blood in my lifetime as a nurse and never had an issue like this...which is why I was curious of 'WHY'. If she needs the special blood then so be it...doesn't bother me a bit. Although I have run into people that wouldn't take just anyone's blood unless it was family members for 'personal' reasons. The fact that they requested Pakistan, Iranian, Indian blood made me raise an eye brow...not so sorry if that bothers you. Thanks for the assumptions thou bro...

 

That's interesting on this, if you're still working in the health field it's probably like winning the lottery to see these super super rare blood types.

 

I don't work in the field anymore...but I can imagine it being cool, but also a pain in the ass...especially if you're trying to keep them healthy and knowing that every time you need to do a necessary blood draw you're making the situation worse and worse. It's sad. It's like bleeding patients that you're trying to monitor...youre giving them blood then you have to take 5-6 tubes of blood for various labs. Then people wonder why they're H&H aren't going up like we wanted it to...duh...it's cuz we keep drawing a ton of blood from them every 4 hrs. So frustrating.

 

tough position for the parent...they could ask for blood from India to be shipped ,or work with what they have by getting the needed pints from available donors over a month and half collection time,the blood will go under hematopoietic stem cells process either ways,and won't be all used over a month, If it doesn't work out ,they can use the genetic therapy

 

Does this really happen with regularity? It blows my mind to think that it does.

 

The Royal Family....and Tom Cruise.

 

It's like someone saying they can only take blood from Americans, Mexicans or Nicaraguans... and then someone suspects it's religion or race based. Pretty sure you'd find that strange.