Effects of a major earthquake on blood donor types and infectious diseases marker rates

Abstract

This observational study attempted to identify the effect of a natural disaster on the safety of blood supply and donor types with the influx of donors after a severe earthquake. Blood donation rate, blood discard rate and safety of blood donations responding to the earthquake, as projected from the infectious disease marker rate, were evaluated in blood donated immediately before (1 July-17 August) and after 17 August 1999 (17 August-21 August). These were compared with the results from the corresponding periods in 1998 and 2000 for donations at a university medical centre and two regional blood centres. 8055 units of allogeneic blood were collected at two regional blood centres, and 450 units were collected at a university medical centre during 4 days. Viral marker rates were nearly the same at the former but were slightly lower at the latter. The blood discard rate was nearly twice the comparative periods at the former, but it remained unchanged at the latter. Voluntary donors replaced the replacement donors during 4 days. This analysis highlights the size of the pool of potential donors that are available as a national resource that can be motivated to give blood with the right motivation.

Simulation-optimization model for production planning in the blood supply chain

“…Finally, Gunpinar [13] minimizes the distance of collecting blood units from remote donors. Other papers such as Glynn et al [14], Sonmezoglu et al [15], Boppana and Chalasani [16] and Jabbarzadeh et al [17] present quantitative models aimed at studying blood collection aspects of disaster and emergency situations. However, none of these studies have considered the multiple alternatives available for collecting blood and blood products, which is one of the key features of the proposed models.…”

The Friday of Rage of the Egyptian Revolution

“…2,3 Experience around the world has repeatedly shown that blood waste remains a greater problem during mass casualty than in normal times. 4 During disaster, hundreds of people crowd collection facilities. Moreover, the qualified staff are in short supply with higher risk of screening errors.…”

First‐time donors responding to a national disaster may be an untapped resource for the blood centre

“…When large disasters and emergency events occur, these shortages may be critical and make it difficult to meet the crisis and maintain the blood supply for victims [2,3]. Despite many new donors who donate blood in response to the crisis [4,5], it has consistently been reported that disasters and accidents usually have short‐term effects on blood donation behaviour and the stimulus to donate blood following disasters may be short lived [4,6,7]. Donors, especially first‐time donors, may not realize that regular donations are needed to continuously replenish the blood supply.…”

“…Donors, especially first‐time donors, may not realize that regular donations are needed to continuously replenish the blood supply. In addition, some studies have demonstrated that collecting large amounts of blood in a short period may cause wastage of units if it exceeds the acute need, and such news reports may confuse and even anger some donors [4,6].…”

“…Those first‐time donors, either self‐motivated or responding to the Ministry of Health’s call for blood donations, may be untapped resources for blood supply. Although studies in other countries have demonstrated that most of the first‐time donors who respond to disasters did not become regular donors [4,6], no studies have examined the return behaviour of these Chinese donors. Overall, Chinese donors are young (94% younger than 45 years) and well educated (81% with ≥high school education) [9], and those responding to disasters quickly have the potential to become regular donors.…”