Erythrocytes from blood donors and patients express many different antigens (blood groups). If antibodies against these antigens are present, the donor blood must be compatible with the patient otherwise the patient could suffer from transfusion reactions.

For patients with the most common blood groups a rapid and efficient supply of compatible erythrocyte concentrates is taken for granted.

There is however a special category of patients who possess antibodies against rare blood group antigens.

The opportune supply of blood products to treat these patients often requires extensive measures, such as, the mobilisation of blood donors on a national and often an international scale.
Examples of such blood groups are the absence of high frequency antigens such as, k, Kp(b), Lu(b), Co(a), Vel, Yt(a), P, Lan or U, or the presence of a rare phenotype such a Ko, Lu(a-b-), Jk(a-b-)and Rh null.

For this reason a database of rare blood donors was set up. In collaboration with the DGTI-Working Party «rare blood groups» the structure of this database has been elaborated and updated.

From 2005 to 2022, this task was carried out by the Interregional Blood Transfusion Centre SRC on behalf of Swiss Transfusion SRC.
Since January 1, 2023, the Swiss data are managed by Swiss Transfusion Zurich, Rare Donor File (CH).
The data from the Interregional Blood Transfusion and the data from Germany and Austria are still available in the DGTI Rare Donors register and are updated on an ongoing basis.

Thanks to a coordinated approach between the German-speaking countries and international cooperation, the primary aim is to continuously increase the security of supply for these patients with rare blood groups, and to achieve this objective in a cost-effective way.

Note: By donor numbers with * only 1 PCR determination is available.