Asian Rare Blood Seminar, jointly organized by National Center for Transfusion Medicine, Mongolia (NCTM) and Shanghai Blood Center/WHO Collaborating Center for Blood Transfusion Services (SBC/WHOCCBTS), was held in Mongolia’s capital city Ulaanbaatar, on 19-20th Aug. 2016. Dr. L. Byambasuren, the Mongolian Vice Minister of Health, attended the opening session and gave an address in which she welcomed the Asian Rare Blood Seminar held in Mongolia. She said the Seminar is significantly important to promote the knowledge sharing within transfusion medicine communities in Asia and to strengthen the cooperation on rare blood issues among the participating countries.

Zhu Yongming said in the opening address that rare blood is of the most significance for transfusion medicine and transfusion service in terms of safety and effectiveness. It is an essential and challenging task for all blood establishments to provide compatible blood to patients especially for those with rare blood types or in need of repeated transfusion. He said in September 2015, the United Nations released Sustainable Development Goals 2015-2030 (SDGs) on the basis of Millennium Development Goals 2000-2015 (MDGs). Both of these two 15 year development goals referred to the improvement of maternal and child health. This seminar is for dual purposes of providing safe and compatible blood daily, and contributing to achieve the SDG goals.

 More than 30 delegates from Japan, Korea, Singapore, India, New Zealand, United States, Mongolia and China (Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Inner Mongolia and Hong Kong) attended the seminar.

Participants reported the experience in rare blood supply and transportation in their own country or region, and offered ideas and suggestions on regional cooperation, problems and challenges in ensuring rare blood supply. Recommendations were proposed for the next two years, which will focus on the information sharing and unified survey on alloantibody specificities and frequencies in respective regions. In the same time, researches on RHCE compatible transfusion would be conducted. (The rare blood types defined in transfusion society are those with a frequency under 1/1000. RhD negative frequency in Asian people is about 4/1000, which is not in the scope of discussion at this seminar)

Beginning in 2007, SBC led the establishment of National Rare Blood Bank in China. Donor screening has been carried out for rare red cell/platelet phenotype and IgA deficiency among different minorities and regions. More than 1.5 million people have been screened. In 2010, China established its own professional website on Rare Blood Bank, which promotes clinical usage of rare blood in the country. In recent years, there are more than 30 cases of rare blood transfusion annually, which greatly relieve the difficulties in clinical supply of rare blood. Meanwhile, new technologies have been invented and applied for relevant patents. Three cooperative blood services have obtained national or regional technology achievement awards. Today, thirteen provincial blood centers have participated in the program and more than 1300 rare donors are registered in files.