Corona Daily 063: Blood Connects Us All

Tomorrow, 14 June, is World Blood Donor Day, the second one in this pandemic. This day is celebrated annually since 2005 on the birth anniversary of the Austrian biologist Karl Landsteiner. He won the Nobel for his discovery of the blood groups A, B, O and others. This year Rome is the host.

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Last April, most blood drives were cancelled threatening serious blood shortages everywhere. Hospital refrigerators started running out of blood. Schools, corporations and places of worship were shut – these are the places where the major blood donation drives take place. Most people, anywhere in the world, have donated blood the first time in a school. The Red Cross receives 80% of its blood stock from drives at these venues.

Temporary donation centers moved the donor beds six feet apart, added sanitisers, bought thousands of pairs of gloves, but donors and staff were worried about catching the virus. The number of road accident cases dropped, but women were still hemorrhaging during childbirth. In gun cultures, people were still getting shot. And cancer patients needed transfusions.

Only in the USA, every two seconds someone needs blood. And a single donation can save up to three lives. In a year, more than 1.75 million people are diagnosed with cancer for the first time. Many of them need blood, often daily, during chemotherapy. Type O-negative blood, and type AB plasma can be transfused to any patient, but both are in short supply.

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Blood outside our body is a perishable product. Red blood cells last about 42 days, and plasma can be frozen. However, platelets – the tiny cells in blood that help it clot – last only five days. Excluding the collection and transport time, it is effectively three days. This is the reason constant donations and a rolling blood supply is critical.

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In poor countries, 54 % blood transfusions are given to children under 5 years of age. In the rich countries, 75% transfusions are given to patients 60+. On the other hand, because rich countries are ageing, 65+ donors are a big percentage of donors. (In young countries like India, a person above 65 is not eligible to donate.) In America and Europe, this was another reason for the drop in collections. The 65+ donors were told they were vulnerable and shouldn’t leave their houses.

Countries wanted to attract young donors. But due to school closures, organizations like the Red Cross didn’t manage to reach them. It is feared three or four batches of youngsters will miss the experience of donating blood as they step into adulthood.  

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Scientists in many countries including the USA, Korea, Pakistan, China, and France analysed thousands of blood donations for the presence of the coronavirus.  The good news is the researchers uniformly found that the risk of transmission of covid-19 through blood donation is close to zero. Even in the rare cases where donated blood tested positive, transmission through transfusion didn’t happen.

The gap between a vaccine and blood donation varies depending on the country and vaccine, but is usually 14 days. If you have had a covid infection, in India you need to wait for 28 days before donating. With the covid crisis, India has opened an online platform BloodForIndia.

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In the UK, generally speaking a liberal democracy, two men can form a civil union, but may not be able to donate blood. When a British man goes to donate blood, one of the questions on the form is: “have you had sex with another man in the last three months?” If he says yes, he is disqualified.

The law was reformed in 2017. Before that any man who had had sex with another man in the previous 12 months was disqualified.

Tomorrow, on the occasion of World Blood Donor Day, this barrier is removed. Gay and bisexual men with a stable sexual partner and with no sex-transmitted disease or AIDS can donate their blood from tomorrow, without resorting to abstinence.

Ravi