Blood donation: how it was affected by the pandemic and whether the situation can be improved
About 118.5 million blood donations are collected worldwide each year, 40% of which come from high-income countries, where 16% of the world’s population lives. In low-income countries, the median value of the number of donations per blood center is 1,300, in low-income countries - 4,400, in high-income countries - 9,300 compared to 25,700 in high-income countries . This was announced by the World Health Organization in 2020.
In Ukraine, the donation situation has been quite difficult in the past, and the pandemic has only exacerbated it. The Center for Public Health reported that more than 12,000 blood centers in the world donate blood and donate it to three types of people: volunteers for free, family members of patients and paid donors. Most healthy people can donate blood. However, 90% of potential donors do not currently do so.
We spoke with Lyudmyla Linnyk, coordinator of the all-Ukrainian platform Donor UA , about the current situation in Ukraine with blood donation, how it can be improved and how the pandemic has affected all this.
There is a shortage of blood across the country
Lyudmila Linnyk says quarantine has affected donations across the country. Currently in Ukraine the number of donations is almost three times less (12 per 1,000 population) than recommended by the WHO (33 per 1,000 population).
The situation differs in different cities and oblasts. For example, there is a lack of blood in Vinnytsia, Chernihiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and in some places in Kharkiv.
“The tendency to reduce the number of donors in Ukraine in general and in Kyiv in particular is quite stable. And before the pandemic ,the situation with donation in Ukraine has been quite bad for quite some time. It is estimated that every third person on the planet needs a blood transfusion at least once in their life. In order for people to be 100% provided with donated blood, there need to be 30 donors per 1,000 population. In Ukraine, even in the besttimes was 13 people per 1,000 population. That is, it is half the norm. And this has always been the case, and now during the pandemic this figure has dropped by 40-60%. We see that this is really very critical, "Linnyk explained.
She added that at the end of January this year, the law "On safety and quality of donated blood" came into force for the first time since 1995. These are the first, serious global changes in the Ukrainian blood service. On the basis of this law, a state strategy for the development of the blood service was developed, which should be implemented in the next 5 years. Despite some of the controversial changes in this law, there is a key point that excludes so-called family donation. For example, when a person had a relative who was ill, she had to run and look for blood on her own. According to this law, this type of blood supply should have been excluded, it should have been taken over by the Blood Center, the state, public organizations, etc. We should move to the European model.
"Donation should be voluntary andfree of charge, and everyone must be 100% provided with blood and its components, regardless of whether they live in a small or large city. It sounds nice in words, but you need to get to it - it took 5 years. I am afraid that we will not have a stop in development. Reforms are always difficult, painful. This is a difficult path. But at least the light at the end of the tunnel faded and I hope there will be no setback, ”says Linnyk.
The process of donating blood in Ukraine and the world differs significantly
Recently, the list of people who can donate blood has been expanded. Yes, before people with a homosexual orientation could not donate blood, now this norm has been excluded.
"Yes, it was a discriminatory norm. It was written that people who had homosexual relations could not donate blood. It is now simply written that these are risky forms of sexual behavior. That is, it does not matter a person’s orientation, but when a person has unprotected sex, frequent changes of partners, etc. "This refers to forms of risky behavior, " says Linnyk.
The platform’s coordinator explains that, in general, contraindications to blood donation have been reviewed globally. In the whole world it was not a contraindication that a person contracted jaundice (Botkin’s disease, hepatitis A), but in Ukraine until recently it was a contraindication and people who contracted Botkin could not donate blood, although it is hepatitis of a completely different nature and it is not transmitted through the blood.
"It’s hard to say how quickly blood transfusion stations will implement it, because they are very inflexible and wary of change. For example, Feofania Hospital has been accepting such donors for a long time and everything is fine, no one got sick. I hope that the blood centers will take this recommendation into account and stop violating orders. There are many such donors and they really want to donate blood, but they can’t, because there was such a norm.
Many outdated norms have been rejected, but blood centers will approach this gradually. There will be no one who will open the door and tell to donate blood to absolutely everyone who wants. In Ukraine, the process of donating blood is very and radically different. In the world, blood can be taken from anyone and anywhere. For example, you go out of the supermarket and see that the Red Cross is taking blood and donate it. Before that you did not follow a diet, you do nothing special, you live your life in peace.
In Ukraine, there are serious requirements for donors: two days before blood donation to follow a diet, not to eat certain foods, etc. This is primarily due to our laboratory studies, they are not as modern as we would like. And if a person does not follow the donor’s diet, then the analysis can not adequately examine the donor’s blood. But in the whole world there are no such requirements and everything is simpler. But this is not a matter of one day, " Lyudmyla Linnyk explained.
What is the Donor UA
platform? The Donor UA platform is the only and the largest electronic database of blood donors in Ukraine. Currently, almost 34,000 donors are registered on the platform: some are active donors, some have registered and forgotten, and some donate blood regularly.
"People from all over Ukraine come to us every day. On the site we have a button "Needed donors", in two or three minutes a person fills out an application, it is immediately seen by the coordinator, in this case it’s me. The application is processed within a day, and then we make a mailing on our donor base. If people see that there is a recipient who is suitable for their blood, they can come and donate blood for that person to the address, or to the general blood bank, as they see fit. Roughly speaking, we closed the blood needs for 3,000 recipients. The platform has existed for 5 years, once only one and a half thousand donors were registered on it, and now there are 34 thousand of them, ” said the coordinator .
Ludmila Linnyk says they are inviting donors, recipients and volunteers to help develop the donation movement in their city.
"We invite philanthropists, because when there is at least a little financial help and support, we can more actively plan some actions and so on. We are always "for" any cooperation with public organizations, with business, with ordinary citizens, with the state. Come, suggest, let’s discuss, communicate and make sure that recipients receive the highest quality and safe blood, and donors have comfort, convenience, are not afraid and feel like superheroes, "she concluded.
Author Anastasia Ishchenko
Read also - Adult TCM
In Ukraine, the donation situation has been quite difficult in the past, and the pandemic has only exacerbated it. The Center for Public Health reported that more than 12,000 blood centers in the world donate blood and donate it to three types of people: volunteers for free, family members of patients and paid donors. Most healthy people can donate blood. However, 90% of potential donors do not currently do so.
We spoke with Lyudmyla Linnyk, coordinator of the all-Ukrainian platform Donor UA , about the current situation in Ukraine with blood donation, how it can be improved and how the pandemic has affected all this.
There is a shortage of blood across the country
Lyudmila Linnyk says quarantine has affected donations across the country. Currently in Ukraine the number of donations is almost three times less (12 per 1,000 population) than recommended by the WHO (33 per 1,000 population).
The situation differs in different cities and oblasts. For example, there is a lack of blood in Vinnytsia, Chernihiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and in some places in Kharkiv.
“The tendency to reduce the number of donors in Ukraine in general and in Kyiv in particular is quite stable. And before the pandemic ,the situation with donation in Ukraine has been quite bad for quite some time. It is estimated that every third person on the planet needs a blood transfusion at least once in their life. In order for people to be 100% provided with donated blood, there need to be 30 donors per 1,000 population. In Ukraine, even in the besttimes was 13 people per 1,000 population. That is, it is half the norm. And this has always been the case, and now during the pandemic this figure has dropped by 40-60%. We see that this is really very critical, "Linnyk explained.
She added that at the end of January this year, the law "On safety and quality of donated blood" came into force for the first time since 1995. These are the first, serious global changes in the Ukrainian blood service. On the basis of this law, a state strategy for the development of the blood service was developed, which should be implemented in the next 5 years. Despite some of the controversial changes in this law, there is a key point that excludes so-called family donation. For example, when a person had a relative who was ill, she had to run and look for blood on her own. According to this law, this type of blood supply should have been excluded, it should have been taken over by the Blood Center, the state, public organizations, etc. We should move to the European model. "Donation should be voluntary andfree of charge, and everyone must be 100% provided with blood and its components, regardless of whether they live in a small or large city. It sounds nice in words, but you need to get to it - it took 5 years. I am afraid that we will not have a stop in development. Reforms are always difficult, painful. This is a difficult path. But at least the light at the end of the tunnel faded and I hope there will be no setback, ”says Linnyk.
The process of donating blood in Ukraine and the world differs significantly
Recently, the list of people who can donate blood has been expanded. Yes, before people with a homosexual orientation could not donate blood, now this norm has been excluded.
"Yes, it was a discriminatory norm. It was written that people who had homosexual relations could not donate blood. It is now simply written that these are risky forms of sexual behavior. That is, it does not matter a person’s orientation, but when a person has unprotected sex, frequent changes of partners, etc. "This refers to forms of risky behavior, " says Linnyk.
The platform’s coordinator explains that, in general, contraindications to blood donation have been reviewed globally. In the whole world it was not a contraindication that a person contracted jaundice (Botkin’s disease, hepatitis A), but in Ukraine until recently it was a contraindication and people who contracted Botkin could not donate blood, although it is hepatitis of a completely different nature and it is not transmitted through the blood.
"It’s hard to say how quickly blood transfusion stations will implement it, because they are very inflexible and wary of change. For example, Feofania Hospital has been accepting such donors for a long time and everything is fine, no one got sick. I hope that the blood centers will take this recommendation into account and stop violating orders. There are many such donors and they really want to donate blood, but they can’t, because there was such a norm.
Many outdated norms have been rejected, but blood centers will approach this gradually. There will be no one who will open the door and tell to donate blood to absolutely everyone who wants. In Ukraine, the process of donating blood is very and radically different. In the world, blood can be taken from anyone and anywhere. For example, you go out of the supermarket and see that the Red Cross is taking blood and donate it. Before that you did not follow a diet, you do nothing special, you live your life in peace.
In Ukraine, there are serious requirements for donors: two days before blood donation to follow a diet, not to eat certain foods, etc. This is primarily due to our laboratory studies, they are not as modern as we would like. And if a person does not follow the donor’s diet, then the analysis can not adequately examine the donor’s blood. But in the whole world there are no such requirements and everything is simpler. But this is not a matter of one day, " Lyudmyla Linnyk explained.
What is the Donor UA
platform? The Donor UA platform is the only and the largest electronic database of blood donors in Ukraine. Currently, almost 34,000 donors are registered on the platform: some are active donors, some have registered and forgotten, and some donate blood regularly.
"People from all over Ukraine come to us every day. On the site we have a button "Needed donors", in two or three minutes a person fills out an application, it is immediately seen by the coordinator, in this case it’s me. The application is processed within a day, and then we make a mailing on our donor base. If people see that there is a recipient who is suitable for their blood, they can come and donate blood for that person to the address, or to the general blood bank, as they see fit. Roughly speaking, we closed the blood needs for 3,000 recipients. The platform has existed for 5 years, once only one and a half thousand donors were registered on it, and now there are 34 thousand of them, ” said the coordinator .
Ludmila Linnyk says they are inviting donors, recipients and volunteers to help develop the donation movement in their city.
"We invite philanthropists, because when there is at least a little financial help and support, we can more actively plan some actions and so on. We are always "for" any cooperation with public organizations, with business, with ordinary citizens, with the state. Come, suggest, let’s discuss, communicate and make sure that recipients receive the highest quality and safe blood, and donors have comfort, convenience, are not afraid and feel like superheroes, "she concluded.
Author Anastasia Ishchenko
Read also - Adult TCM