What is a universal blood donor?
16 March 2015
The average human being holds 9-11 pints of blood (roughly 5 litres).and the human body generally needs a minimum of 5+ pints in their system to stay alive. Typically losing any more than 4 pints of blood at any given time will prove to be fatal. Scientists have yet to design a successful substitute for human blood, which is why blood donors are a vital lifesaving means for people who are in a medical emergency.
Blood Types
The main blood groups are A, B, AB, O (these are known as the ABO blood groups) and D (also known as the Rhesus blood group). Blood compatibility type is always classified by these blood groups.
Blood Transfusions
Blood transfusions are performed using donated blood from donors with matching blood groups. The donor’s blood is sometimes (if time allows) mixed with the recipient’s blood to ultimately confirm the compatibility; this process is called cross matching; however in the case of an immediate emergency cross matching is not always an option. Administering a non-matching blood transfusion will cause a very dangerous reaction known as hemolytic transfusion that is caused from ABO or Rhesus incompatibilities. Various allergic reactions however have been known to occur in blood recipients even when blood type is an exact match.
Universal Recipients/Donors
People with type AB blood are considered universal blood recipients. The reason is that AB blood types do not contain natural antibodies against the ABO blood groups and this avoids incompatibility reactions when a person who is blood group AB receives blood from a donor who has another ABO blood group. Blood group AB is very rare and although AB blood types are able to receive any type of blood they are not able to donate blood to persons that are not blood group AB.
Which blood group is known as universal donor?
Type O negative blood is considered the universal blood type. People with type O negative blood are called universal donors because type O negative blood is compatible to any blood recipient’s type. Ideally the donor’s blood types should always be an exact match to the recipient’s blood type. Universal donors should only be used in the case of medical emergency where there is an unavailability or shortage of the patient’s blood type or when a blood transfusion needs to be performed immediately, not allowing the time to cross type the blood compatibility. Because many instances where a blood transfusion is needed is in an emergency situation, type O negative blood is often in short supply which further increases the need for type O negative blood donors to generously donate their blood to hospitals and blood banks.
If you would like to know more about how our blood transfusion supplies and quality control kits help to detect Type O universal blood donors, then e-mail our team at Lorne Labs HQ and we'll be happy to help you. Alternatively, read more about O Negative blood here.
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