IBTS first national transfusion service to roll out non-invasive haemoglobin check for blood donors

The IBTS published its 2014 Annual Report today (Monday).  IBTS Chief Executive Andy Kelly said that thanks to the continued commitment of Irish people to blood donation, all hospital needs for blood were met throughout the year.  “The IBTS collected 133,309 donations from 80,688 donors in 2014. While this is a decline of 2% compared to 2013, this is due to a lower demand from hospitals, which in turn reflects changes in surgical and medical practices in Ireland and worldwide,” he said. 

“During the Summer of 2014 we changed the way donors are checked for anaemia before they can donate. The new method checks the haemoglobin level without needing the finger stick blood sample – there is less discomfort, and less delay at the clinics. For good measure the test is more robust, and it’s less sensitive to fluctuations from warm weather that have been a problem in previous summers. This resulted in far fewer donors being turned away, during the summer months especially. For the first time in years we did not have to run special advertising campaigns over the Summer months appealing for donations. We’re the first national service to test donors in this way,” said IBTS Medical & Scientific Director Dr William Murphy.

In 2014, the IBTS carried out a number of studies on the frequency of Hepatitis E in the Irish population.  “Hepatitis E is a food borne disease that has reappeared recently in Ireland and in other parts of Northern Europe. In healthy people it usually causes at most only a brief mild illness, and very often it causes no symptoms at all. In some of hospital patients however, infection can cause persistent hepatitis leading to serious liver disease. Our studies have shown that hepatitis E virus is present in about 1 in 5000 healthy donors. At the end of the year we requested additional support from the Department of Health to fund screening of blood donors for this virus in the future,” said Dr Murphy.*

ENDS

*Funding for the introduction of a 3 year testing programme has been approved by the Department of Health

Note to editors

·     Blood lasts just 35 days. Platelets and Neonatal blood lasts between 5 and 7 days.

·         IBTS aims to hold about 7 days supply of blood at any given time

·         47% of the population are O positive

·         8% of the population are O negative but this blood groups represents 14% of all blood used.

·         Just 3% of the eligible population give blood

·         Donors give on average 1.6 times a year. They may be able to donate up to 4 times a year.

Full text of 2014 Annual Report available at

http://www.giveblood.ie/About_Us/Publications_Guidelines/Annual_Reports/