People forgetting or being uncertain about their blood type is far from scarce, but it almost cost a 50-year-old woman from Nantou County her life were it not for a timely blood test.
Chiu Li-kuei (邱麗桂), a Nantou Hospital medical technologist, spoke about the incident on the sidelines of an awards ceremony held by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Taipei yesterday morning to honor 50 medical specialists, including Chiu, for their special dedication and stellar achievements.
The 50 recipients were selected from 1,986 medical personnel at 26 hospitals nationwide.
“The woman always thought that she was blood type O, a belief reinforced by a lack of discomfort after she was transfused with type O blood following a traffic accident two decades ago,” Chiu said.
Two years ago, Chiu said the patient came to the hospital to undergo bone surgery and a preoperative blood test found that her blood was not the classic type O.
A further test discovered that the woman actually had the rarest blood type, Bombay phenotype hh, Chiu said, adding that irregular antibodies were also detected in her body that could have been produced after the blood transfusion 20 years previously.
“If she had been given classic type O blood during the surgery, the woman could have suffered a potentially fatal red blood cell rupture, also known as a hemolytic reaction,” Chiu said.
According to the Taiwan Blood Services Foundation, Bombay phenotype hh has an incidence rate of one in 10,000 people and is commonly mistaken for type O.
“Like the classic blood group, the Bombay blood group can also be divided into four types — O, A, B and AB. As of last year, 66 people in the nation were known to have type A Bombay phenotype blood, 61 with type B, 51 with type O and 11 with type AB,” foundation official Li Lei (黎蕾) said.
Yangmingshan National Park authorities yesterday urged visitors to respect public spaces and obey the law after a couple was caught on a camera livestream having sex at the park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) earlier in the day. The Shilin Police Precinct in Taipei said it has identified a suspect and his vehicle registration number, and would summon him for questioning. The case would be handled in accordance with public indecency charges, it added. The couple entered the park at about 11pm on Thursday and began fooling around by 1am yesterday, the police said, adding that the two were unaware of the park’s all-day live
Fast food chain McDonald's is to raise prices by up to NT$5 on some products at its restaurants across Taiwan, starting on Wednesday next week, the company announced today. The prices of all extra value meals and sharing boxes are to increase by NT$5, while breakfast combos and creamy corn soup would go up by NT$3, the company said in a statement. The price of the main items of those meals, if ordered individually, would remain the same. Meanwhile, the price of a medium-sized lemon iced tea and hot cappuccino would rise by NT$3, extra dipping sauces for chicken nuggets would go up
Yangmingshan National Park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) nature area has gone viral after a park livestream camera observed a couple in the throes of intimate congress, which was broadcast live on YouTube, drawing large late-night crowds and sparking a backlash over noise, bright lights and disruption to wildlife habitat. The area’s livestream footage appeared to show a couple engaging in sexual activity on a picnic table in the park on Friday last week, with the uncensored footage streamed publicly online. The footage quickly spread across social media, prompting a tide of visitors to travel to the site to “check in” and recreate the
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not
RSS