Before you travel the world, know your blood type

This year alone, quite a few travellers have had the unpleasant surprise to be in a state of medical emergency and hearing from the hospital employees … “Sorry, we have to wait for a blood donor until we can perform the necessary surgery.”

This is of course the type of surprise you don’t want to have where you are in such need and cannot even begin to think what to do in a country where you don’t know anybody. Because of that, many embassies have expats with rare blood types on stand-by, but what if you are located on an island with only locals and a handful of travellers and none of them can donate to you as your blood type is O negative?

Thankfully, there are more and more groups worldwide forming to help rh negative people get blood when they need it.
Even in the U.S. you can have issues receiving a blood donation as O negative blood is usually given in cases of emergency to ensure that it is compatible with the patients. But it seems that there are a few times when an O negative individual is in need of O negative blood and unable to receive anything else, a shortage of blood happens to exist.

This of course is nothing compared to being stuck with a need in a country where only 1 in 1,000 people has the same O negative blood without any other type being compatible for donation.

David Connelly and Lucy Hill are amongst the many who have this year alone experienced the unmet need to get the right donor because they had accidents in Thailand where only around 0.5% of the population is rh negative.


Both of them happen to be blood type A negative, so they can only receive blood from someone who is either blood type O negative or A negative.
As 0.2% of the nation is O negative and 0.1% A negative, 3 in 1,000 people in Thailand would be able to donate blood to them.

Thankfully, things turned out ok, but if you are somewhere far from the big cities, this can turn into a huge problem.

So what can you do if you have a rare blood type and plan to visit a country where yours is even rarer?

1) Let your friends know that you are going to a country where you may possibly be in need of their help if anything should happen. If you cannot have phone reception, keep a smart phone with you.
Follow us on Twitter and fan our Facebook page if you are rh negative and if there is ever a need, post it to the page or @ us on Twitter and we will retweet your need for you.

And let your friends know that they need to do it for you if there is something that you cannot do as for example you could be unable due to your accident to contact us on your own.
Keep a note in your wallet stating that you have a rare blood type and what it is alongside the number of your friends to whom you have given our information.
Then they will know what to do and so will we.

Make sure your emergency card indicates that you are rh negative as the rarity can cause this important fact to be overlooked at times and you have to avoid being transfused with the incompatible rh positive blood factor.

People have literally died because of these types of mistakes and the more you do to avoid those risks, the better you will be off.

2) Visit Rh Negative Groups and Organizations Worldwide and contact the ones located in the countries you are planning to visit. Also write their information on the emergency card in your wallet as many hospitals are not directly working with them and may not be aware of their existance.

And why not make it a trip to visit the headquarters of some of those communities? It might be a great experience to have a traveller with their rare blood type and for you to have local friends showing you around.

Coming together with rh negative people all over the world has been a great experience for me and you can experience the same.
And why not donate some blood for them as well?

So make sure you cover your bases, get connected with the right people and get ready for an amazing experience knowing that if you are in need, you may have local friends and this may open doors to make this your best trip ever!

So once again here are some examples:

If you are blood type O negative …

only 3 in 1,000 people can donate to you in China,
only 2 in 1,000 people can donate to you in Thailand and
only 0.18% of the Indonesian population has blood type O negative.

To find out how rare your blood type is worldwide, visit:
Blood Type Frequencies by Country including the Rh Factor

Happy travels!