World making slow progress toward ensuring safe blood supply: UN health agency

The world is making only slow progress towards the goal of 100 per cent safe, unpaid, voluntary blood donation, with most developing countries still depending on paid donors or family member donors, according to a new survey by the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO).

However, some countries such as China, Malaysia and India have shown progress in the last two years by applying stricter principles to blood donation within their AIDS prevention programmes, the WHO said today ahead of the full survey results to be published on World Blood Donor Day on Wednesday.

Regular, unpaid voluntary donors are the mainstay of a safe and sustainable blood supply because they are less likely to lie about their health status, WHO said. Evidence indicates that they are also more likely to keep themselves healthy. South Africa, for instance, has an HIV prevalence of 23.3 per cent in the adult population but only 0.03 per cent among its regular blood donors.

The survey shows that out of the 124 countries that provided data to the WHO, 56 saw an increase in unpaid voluntary donations. The remaining 68 have either made no progress or have seen a decline in the number of unpaid voluntary donors. Of the 124 countries, 49 have reached 100 per cent unpaid voluntary blood donations but out of these 49, only 17 are developing countries.

“The number of donations per 1000 population is about 15 times greater in high-income than in low-income countries,” WHO said in today’s release. “This is concerning because developing countries have an even greater need for sustained supplies of safe blood since many conditions requiring blood transfusions – such as severe malaria-related anaemia in children or serious pregnancy complications – are still claiming over one million lives every year.”

In the area of blood testing, 56 out of 124 countries did not screen all of their donated blood for HIV, hepatitis B and C and syphilis and the reasons given for this include scarcity or unaffordability of test kits, lack of infrastructure and shortage of trained staff.

However despite such poor findings, WHO said the survey did show some signs of progress. In particular, St. Lucia has made the biggest jump forward, going from 24.39 per cent of collected blood coming from unpaid volunteers in 2002 to just over 83 per cent in 2004, while Malaysia went from 50 per cent to 99 per cent and India from 45 per cent to 52.42 per cent.

According to Government responses to the WHO questionnaire, the reason for progress is tied to stronger AIDS prevention programmes.

In China , government figures show that all donated blood in 2005 was tested for the four infections, while in the area of blood donation, China has seen a rise of unpaid voluntary donors from 22 per cent in 1998 to 94.5 per cent last year. Much of China’s progress is due to its reduction of commercial blood and plasma, thus minimizing the practice of unregulated blood collection and provision throughout the country while also strengthening HIV prevention.

The WHO introduced the 100 per cent unpaid, voluntary blood donation policy in 1997. World Blood Donor Day, an annual event on June 14, is a day to help governments reach that target by creating awareness of the need for sustainable supplies of safe blood. It is also a day to thank existing blood donors for the remarkable gift they make to those whose lives they have improved or saved, and to encourage new donors to commit.

“Commitment” is the theme of this year’s World Blood Donor Day – commitment from regular and potential donors, but also from Governments and the global community, with the goal of keeping blood safety high on the agenda as a vital factor in treatment and disease prevention.

The global observance of World Blood Donor Day this year will take place in Bangkok, Thailand.