The Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) is concerned it may have inadvertently taken blood donations from some women and a much smaller number of men who had a low blood count at the time of donation.
Those who may have been affected would have donated blood in the last 18 months. This period coincides with the introduction of a new non-invasive method to check whether a donor has anaemia or not.
Until July 2014, donors’ blood was checked by directly sampling their blood by means of a fingerprick test.
Anaemia is assessed by checking a person’s haemoglobin level. Haemoglobin (Hb) is a protein that contains iron. Found in the red blood cells, it is responsible for carrying oxygen around the body.
New device
Normal Hb level in men is above 13 grams per decilitre; in women it is 11.5 grams per decilitre or greater. It seems the new device was not consistently detecting anaemia in potential donors so that the blood-taking may have rendered a small number of donors iron deficient and even more anaemic.
What symptoms might recent donors who are now anaemic notice? Fatigue and lethargy, shortness of breath on exercise and dizziness are the main symptoms, the severity of which are directly linked to how low the blood count has dropped. You may appear noticeably pale.
However, clinical signs of anaemia are notoriously unreliable and an accurate test of a person’s full blood count is the only way to diagnose the condition.
While the IBTS is undertaking a look-back process which should pick up anyone affected by the faulty technology, if you have given blood recently and feel you have not recovered from the process you should attend your family doctor.
For those who donated more than six months ago and who may have been rendered marginally anaemic in the process a normal iron-containing diet will almost certainly have replenished their iron stores and brought their haemoglobin levels back to normal.
Transfusion
Is there a risk to patients who may have received blood from someone who is anaemic? Because of weight checks of transfusion bags and other IBTS quality control measures the risk to a recipient is non-existent.
In any event, post-transfusion checks by the doctors who decided you needed the blood will show whether your blood count has improved sufficiently or not.
Donated blood lasts 35 days and the IBTS aims to keep seven days supply at any given time. It is appealing for male donors in particular to attend its clinics over the coming days.