The news about Shanghai's intention to build a "Rare blood bank"spreads like wildfire. Zhu Yongming, director of Shanghai Blood Centre (SBC), confirmed that it was a scientific research project co-funded by the National Natural Science Foundation and Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission. In the past three years, approximately 50 cases of rare blood types have been identified and kept. However, the construction of a rare blood types information database that can really be put into clinical practice probably still needs at least two to three years' effort.

SBC is China's first organization that conducted the Rh Negative Blood screening among Chinese people. Since 2001, with the help from the International Society of Blood Transfusion, SBC has got more than 50 copies of relevant documents on six-seven different blood types through rare blood screening which is supposed to be less than 10 per thousand among the general public. For reasons such as the lack of reagent, difficult operation and high cost, the construction of a rare blood types information database still needs more effort and support from outside. Experts believe that for the purpose of clinical practice, no less than 50 blood types and 1,000 rare human blood samples are needed.

The four relatively large "Rare Blood Banks" are located in the UK, the US, the Netherlands and Japan, and the UK has the world largest one, the International Rare blood bank.

By People��s Daily online