Forget the tattoo – he’ll save a life instead
Sivabalan Ramesh is one in a thousand. The 24-year-old Waikato man has been handpicked out of millions of blood donors worldwide to become a lifeline for a patient 13,000 kilometres away.
Originally from India, Ramesh has given blood countless times.
But a recent worldwide callout for a specific phenotype has led experts to discover that his blood is extremely rare.
His donations will be processed and shipped to the United States to help save the life of a significantly ill stranger.
‘‘I was planning on getting a tattoo of my favourite manga character, Naruto, but I had to cancel that appointment because I got the call to do this,’’ Ramesh told Stuff. ‘‘It was an easy decision to make.’’
Since moving from Chennai, India, to Auckland a year ago to study quantity surveying at Massey University, he has given whole blood five times in New Zealand.
This is the first time he’s been asked to give blood to a specific person. When asked if he felt like a hero, he remained humble, saying it’s just part of his culture. ‘‘I just give blood as much as I can. It’s normal in India. When I was living back home, my whole family would go together and get it done.’’
He was surprised that less than 4 per cent of New Zealanders give blood. ‘‘I’m nothing special.’’
However, New Zealand Blood Service transfusion medical specialist Dr Deepak Sadani argues Ramesh is more than special. ‘‘He is unique in so many ways.’’
Sadani said most people knew about eight blood types: A positive, A negative, B positive, B negative, AB negative, AB positive, O positive, and the universal blood type O negative.
But there are actually 33 blood groups, he said. This gets more complex when people – normally as a result of regular blood transfusions – begin creating antibodies, which attack certain genotype sequences.
‘‘For most people we only look at the ABO antibodies and the D antigen on the red cells initially, and that suffices most people,’’ Sadani said. ‘‘But if I keep giving you blood it’s very likely that you will start making antibodies, which attack other antigens that we don’t look for initially.’’
In this case the patient receiving Ramesh’s blood needs his specific phenotype, a rare combination of JKA negative and JKB negative. Without the right combination the patient could experience hemolytic anemia – an abnormal breakdown of blood cells that could create life-threatening systemic effects.
‘‘You either have JKA negative or JKB negative. It’s very rare to have both negative.’’
The JKA and JKB phenotype – found in Polynesian populations – exists only in about one in 600 Polynesians. There are only about 20 people in NewZealand with that blood type currently donating as of late 2018.
Adding to the rarity, Ramesh’s blood type is also RhD negative or O negative. While 9 per cent of New Zealand donors are O negative, in India only about 2 per cent of people have this, Sadani said.
‘‘So he’s not only JKA negative, JKB negative, but he’s also RhD negative. From my knowledge he’s the only person in New Zealand with that kind of genotype.’’