A new blood group was discovered in India on a 38-year-old woman during surgery. The blood group is named CRIB standing for Cromer i.e. CH India Bengaluru as it was found near Bengaluru. It is one of the 47 blood groups.
“The woman’s blood group did not match any other blood group. We mixed it with other blood groups and tested it but it reacted every time,” Dr Ankit Mathur, medical director of the Rotary-TTK Blood Centre in Bengaluru told the BBC. He was the main contact person for the doctors at the RL Jalappa Hospital in Kolar. The woman was advised to undergo surgery at this hospital due to a heart problem.
It was sent to the International Blood Group Reference Laboratory (IBRGL) in Bristol, UK for study and after 10 months they approved the name ‘CRIB’. It was officially announced at the 35th ISBT conference held in Milan, Italy in June this year.