plasma Archives - Iran News Daily

Give blood, give plasma, share life, share often

mahla — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 21:13:31 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) –June 14 is World Blood Donor Day. Every year countries around the world celebrate World Blood Donor Day. The event serves to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products and to thank voluntary, unpaid blood donors for their life-saving gifts of blood.

A blood service that gives patients access to safe blood and blood products in sufficient quantity is a key component of an effective health system. The global theme of World Blood Donor Day changes each year in recognition of the selfless individuals who donate their blood to people unknown to them.

The slogan for the 2023 World Blood Donor Day campaign is “Give blood, give plasma, share life, share often.”

It focuses on patients requiring life-long transfusion support and underlines the role every single person can play, by giving the valuable gift of blood or plasma.

It also highlights the importance of giving blood or plasma regularly to create a safe and sustainable supply of blood and blood products that can be always available, all over the world, so that all patients in need can receive timely treatment.

The objectives are to celebrate and thank individuals who donate blood and encourage more people to become new donors and encourage people in good health to donate blood regularly, as often as is safe and possible, to transform the quality of life for transfusion-dependent patients and help to build a secure blood supply in all countries in the world.

The occasion also highlights the critical roles of voluntary non-remunerated regular blood and plasma donations in achieving universal access to safe blood products for all populations and mobilizes support at national, regional, and global levels among governments and development partners to invest in, strengthen and sustain national blood programs.

Activities that would help promote the slogan of this year’s World Blood Donor Day may include donor appreciation ceremonies, social networking campaigns, special media broadcasts, social media posts featuring individual blood donors with the slogan, meetings and workshops, musical and artistic events to thank blood donors, and coloring the iconic monuments red or yellow. Countries are encouraged to disseminate to various media outlets stories of people, in particular transfusion-dependent patients, whose lives have been saved through blood or plasma donation as a way of motivating blood and plasma donation.

Blood donation in Iran

The average blood donation rate in Iran is 26 per thousand people which places the country in a good situation among other countries.

According to the World Health Organization, the median blood donation rate in high-income countries is 31.5 donations per 1000 people. This compares with 16.4 donations per 1000 people in upper-middle-income countries, 6.6 donations per 1000 people in lower-middle-income countries, and 5.0 donations per 1000 people in low-income countries.

Of the 118.5 million blood donations collected globally, 40% of these are collected in high-income countries, home to 16% of the world’s population.

In low-income countries, up to 54 % of blood transfusions are given to children under 5 years of age; whereas in high-income countries, the most frequently transfused patient group is over 60 years of age, accounting for up to 76% of all transfusions.

Based on samples of 1000 people, the blood donation rate is 31.5 donations in high-income countries, 16.4 donations in upper-middle-income countries, 6.6 donations in lower-middle-income countries, and 5.0 donations in low-income countries.

An increase of 10.7 million blood donations from voluntary unpaid donors has been reported from 2008 to 2018. In total, 79 countries collect over 90% of their blood supply from voluntary unpaid blood donors; however, 54 countries collect more than 50% of their blood supply from family/replacement or paid donors.

Blood transfusion saves lives and improves health, but many patients requiring transfusion do not have timely access to safe blood. Providing safe and adequate blood should be an integral part of every country’s national health care policy and infrastructure.

WHO recommends that all activities related to blood collection, testing, processing, storage, and distribution be coordinated at the national level through effective organization and integrated blood supply networks. The national blood system should be governed by national blood policy and legislative framework to promote the uniform implementation of standards and consistency in the quality and safety of blood and blood products.

Of the 118.5 million blood donations collected globally, 40% of these are collected in high-income countries, home to 16% of the world’s population.

Only 56 of 171 reporting countries produce plasma-derived medicinal products (PDMP) through the fractionation of plasma collected in the reporting countries. A total of 91 countries reported that all PDMPs are imported, 16 countries reported that no PDMP was used during the reporting period, and 8 countries did not respond to the question.

In the past Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20, some 2.223 million blood donations were registered across the country, an increase of 9.3 percent compared to the year before.

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Plasma trial for coronavirus treatment

reporter 1222 — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 08:24:11 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The UK is to operate a trial of coronavirus survivors’ blood plasma to treat hospital patients ill with the disease.

National Health Service Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is asking people who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate their blood so they can assess the therapy in trials, BBC reported.

The hope is that the antibodies they have built up will help to clear the virus in others.

The US has already started a major project to study this, involving more than 1,500 hospitals.

When a person has COVID-19, their immune system responds by creating antibodies, which attack the virus.

Over time these build up and can be found in the plasma, the liquid portion of the blood.

NHSBT now wants to collect the plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients to see if it can be given to people who are currently ill with the virus.

A statement from the organization said: “We envisage that this will be initially used in trials as a possible treatment for COVID-19.

“If fully approved, the trials will investigate whether convalescent plasma transfusions could improve a COVID-19 patient’s speed of recovery and chances of survival.

“All clinical trials have to follow a rigorous approval process to protect patients and to ensure robust results are generated. We are working closely with the government and all relevant bodies to move through the approvals process as quickly as possible.”

Several groups in the UK have been looking into using blood plasma.

University Hospital of Wales (UHW) in Cardiff announced this week that it wanted to trial the technology.

Professor Sir Robert Lechler, president of the Academy of Medical Sciences and executive director of King’s Health Partners, which includes King’s College London and three major London hospitals, is also hoping to set up another small-scale trial.

He wants to use plasma for seriously ill patients that have no other treatment options, while a larger national trial is getting underway.

He said: “I would be disappointed if we weren’t able to see some patients given this form of therapy within a couple of weeks. Let’s hope that the NHSBT national trial gets into gear really quickly.”

He said the UK had moved slowly to test the treatment.

“I think there are many aspects of this pandemic we’ll look back on and say, I wonder why we didn’t move a little bit faster. I think this could be one of those”.

Around the world, trials are now underway to look at using plasma.

In just three weeks, scientists in the US have organized a nationwide project and about 600 patients have been treated so far.

Professor Michael Joyner, from the Mayo Clinic, is leading the work.

He said: “The thing we’ve learned in the first week of administration is that no major safety signals have emerged and administration of the product does not appear to be causing a whole lot of unanticipated side effects.

“There are anecdotal reports of oxygenation improving and other patient improvements. Those are certainly heartening, but they need to be rigorously evaluated.”

He said the therapy was “rough and ready”.

“There’s a lot we don’t understand about the plasma. We’re going to learn more about what’s in the plasma, the components, the antibody levels, and other factors that may be there as the weeks go on.

“But sometimes, as a physician, you just have to try to take a shot on goal when you have a shot.”

Harnessing the blood of recovered patients is not a new idea in medicine. It was used more than 100 years ago during the Spanish Flu epidemic, and more recently for Ebola and SARS.

So far, only small studies have looked at its efficacy, and there is a great deal of research that needs to be done to see how effective it will be against coronavirus.

But in the US, they say they have no shortage of people who want to help.

Bruce Sachais, chief medical officer at the New York Blood Center, said: “People have been amazing. They keep coming out in droves.

“We have hundreds and hundreds of donors and we’ve been able to collect over 1,000 units already. It’s really heart-warming to see that for people who have gone through the infection, in various degrees, their main concern is ‘how can I now help others?'”

Scientists say plasma won’t be a magic bullet.

But while our options for treating coronavirus are so limited, the hope is it could help until a vaccine is found.

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Iran to produce COVID-19 antibody

reporter 1222 — Sun, 19 Apr 2020 09:12:55 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Preparations were made for producing coronavirus, COVID-19, antibody in Iran.

Head of Coronavirus Plasma Therapy Project Hassan Abolghasemi made the remarks in an interview with IRNA on Sun. and added, “with the efforts of researchers in Iran, preparations were made for producing specific COVID-19 immunoglobulin [antibody] in the country.”

Specific immunoglobulin on coronavirus can be produced from human plasma, he said, adding, “in other words, coronavirus antibody can be produced using purification of plasma and/or store them in small-scale vials.”

Like intravenous immunoglobulins, which are provided from human plasma and is a valuable and expensive drug, specific anti-coronavirus immunoglobulin can be produced from human plasma as well, he stressed.

Research activities for producing coronavirus antibody have started in the country, he said, adding, “it seems that there is the ability to produce specific immunoglobulin against COVID-19 in the country.”

Elsewhere in his remarks, Abolghasemi said that effective steps have been taken in this field in the country, adding, “we are waiting to get approval by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education.”

He pointed to the ‘more purification of plasma and possibility of easier storage’ as the salient advantage of the project, he said, adding, “plasma should be stored in a temperature below 20 degrees of centigrade in special bags but in this case, samples will be stored in smaller and portable vials at pharmacies as well.”

The Islamic Republic of Iran has made a breakthrough to treat COVID-19 patients using plasma therapy and all standards have been met at different stages of the research, he added.

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