Despite progress that many countries have made over the past decades, in many low- and middle-income countries, it is still challenging to provide sufficient supplies of blood products for all patients, at all times or in all geographical locations. A major barrier to the achievement of universal access to safe blood products in these countries is ineffective, inefficient and poorly regulated blood supply systems. These systems are often fragmented, composed of many small-scale blood establishments that operate without coordination and have varying levels of performance owing to resource and infrastructure limitations. Additionally, plasma that is generated in excess of clinical need is discarded as medical waste for lack of assured quality and the absence of a national plan for its use in fractionation.
Experience in many countries has demonstrated that a nationally coordinated and effectively regulated network of blood establishments in which key functions are centralized, has many advantages. Centralization optimizes use of resources, reduces overall costs, promotes compliance with quality and safety standards, improves patient access to the most suitable blood components for transfusion, and enhances resilience in emergency situations that affect blood supply or safety. Furthermore, centralization of blood donation processing can play an important role in increasing the availability of quality plasma for fractionation to make needed plasma-derived medicinal products (PDMPs).
WHO's Action framework to advance universal access to safe, effective and quality-assured blood products 2020–2023 also recommends countries to consolidate blood donation testing and processing to achieve the strategic objective of functioning and efficiently managed blood services. Centralized facilities should have effectively implemented quality systems to overcome the shortcomings that often exist in decentralized and fragmented blood systems.
In response to the action framework, WHO has developed two guidance documents on Centralization of blood donation testing and processing and guidance on Increasing supplies of plasma-derived medicinal products in low- and middle-income countries through fractionation of domestic plasma. These two documents are complementary to each other.
The objective of the meeting is to introduce and disseminate the WHO Guidance on Centralization of blood donation testing and processing and the WHO Guidance on Increasing supplies of plasma-derived medicinal products in low-and middle-income countries through fractionation of domestic plasma.
Two sessions are planned:
- a morning session from 09:00 to 11:00 CET: with simultaneous interpretation in English, Arabic, Chinese and Russian; and
- an afternoon session from 16:00 to 18:00 CET: with simultaneous interpretation in English, French and Spanish.