One Sunday evening, me and my husband were seating in the balcony and were feeling bored as we can’t go out due to the lockdown. I suggested him to watch a South Indian movie in Amazon Prime. Both of us are a big fan of these Tamil telegu Movie. But, the big question was which movie we should watch. Almost all the movies we have watched. Then suddenly, we saw one movie named “Walter” displayed on the screen.
I just told him, ok, let’s watch it. In that movie a no of babies were missing but the next day they were returned. They were healthy but the next day they die. It was like a daily phenomenon. Walter who was an honest cop tried to find out the truth. Finally, it was revealed that all these were happening because of a particular type of blood group known as Bombay blood group. The whole baby kidnapping mission was lead by a politician who belongs to this particular type of blood group. That day I came to know about it and did some Internet search to know more about it. In this article I would like to share my findings with you all.
Blood, is known as a connective tissue and is a very essential component for the existence of the human life. The blood components are very costly as they are rare and its process and storage is limited. All of us aware of the four most common blood groups A, B, AB and O. Karl Landsteiner, who was an Austrian scientist discovered three human blood groups, for the first time which are known as A, B, and O. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in the year 1930 for his great discovery. Later, the fourth blood group AB was discovered by two students who worked with him. There is another blood group, which was discovered later and is the rarest blood group. This rare blood group was first discovered in Mumbai (then Bombay) in the year 1952 by Dr Y. M. Bhende, C. K. Deshpande and H. M. Bhatia of the Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College and it was named by the trio as the Bombay blood group.
All the blood groups contain a protein known as H antigen. Karl Landsteiner in his discovery of the famous ABO blood types identified that the red blood cells have an antigen each on their cell services.
An antigen is the substance that causes our immune system to produce antibodies against it and antigen may be a substance from the environment such as chemicals, bacterias, viruses, pollen etc. The antigen can be from the inside environment of the body also. The antigens A and and B are made from the antigen H. A person having A blood group, contains antigen of type A and antibody B in their blood. Similarly, a B blood group person has antigen of type B and antibody of type A in the blood. A person having blood group AB contains both types of antigens i. e. A and B in his blood but antibody is absent. Whereas ‘O’ blood group has A and B antibodies and no antigens. The HH blood group cannot produce the antigen H and without antigen H, A and B antigens cannot be formed. This blood group is also called hh type of blood (Bombay phenotype).
A person having Bombay blood group can accept the blood from a person having that type of blood group only.