Kidd blood group allele frequencies in Thai blood donors

We present Kidd blood group allele frequencies in Thai blood donors and compare them with other frequencies for other populations previously reported.

Eight hundred blood samples obtained from 500 central Thais and 300 northern Thais were genotyped by allele specific-PCR.

It was found that JK*01 and JK*02 allele frequencies were 0.503 and 0.497 in central Thais, while the frequencies were 0.498 and 0.502 in northern Thais. The JK*01 and JK*02 allele frequencies in Thais were similar to those in Chinese populations, whereas the frequencies were significantly different from Japanese, French Basques, and African-Americans.

This is the first to report of Kidd blood group allele frequencies in Thais, which is beneficial for the prevention of both alloimmunization and adverse transfusion reactions.