More than one in five blood donations offered during 2003 were rejected due to disease-related restrictions, according to the transfusion service. This has posed particular problems in the struggle to keep up with demand for blood in hospitals.
It has also emerged that the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) has reintroduced precautions to prevent the possible transmission of SARS by blood products following the re-emergence of the virus in China.
Dr William Murphy, the medical director of the IBTS, has confirmed that SARS precautions first put in place last year have been reactivated. This means that people who have recently travelled to the Guangdong province in China, where two cases of the severe respiratory disease have been confirmed by the World Health Organisation, will not have an offer of blood donation accepted by the blood bank. However, rather than be permanently rejected, potential donors will be deferred for a period of one month.
When added to a ban on donations from people who have lived in Britain for over 5 years, in order to minimise the risk of vCJD transmission through blood products, the various restrictions have put additional pressure on essential blood supplies in the Republic.
Of 186,000 people who attended blood donation clinics throughout the State in 2003, 40,000 had their offer of donation rejected after a range of restrictions were enforced. With the need for platelets (a component of blood essential to clotting) rising sharply because of advances in the treatment of cancer and other diseases, the IBTS is under constant pressure to meet the demand for blood products from hospitals.
The continuing spread of another bug, the West Nile Virus, throughout the US, Mexico and Canada, has precipitated additional restrictions on donors who have travelled to North America.
Until recently potential donors were rejected only if they had travelled to the US and Canada between the months of June and November, when the spread of the virus by mosquitoes is at its height. Now IBTS donor clinics will defer a donation for one month from anyone who travels to North America at any time.
Dr Murphy told The Irish Times that the confirmation of the first case of a cow with BSE in the United States would not result in any immediate added restriction, but the situation was being kept under review.
When an extra pint could save a life: page 13
