Improving access to safe blood products through local production and technology transfer in blood establishments - 2016

Overview

Blood products include not only blood components – whole blood, red blood cells, platelets and plasma manufactured from single donations and intended for direct transfusion – but also plasma-derived medicinal products such as albumin, polyvalent and specific immunoglobulins and blood coagulation factors that are manufactured on an industrial scale from thousands of pooled plasma units. In high-income countries, each unit of whole blood collected is separated into therapeutic blood components to allow for optimized and selective component therapy, based on the therapeutic needs of patients. In stark contrast, ensuring access to safe and essential blood components made from voluntary non-remunerated whole-blood donations often presents a major challenge in low- and middle-income countries, where local quality and safety standards in blood establishments urgently need to be established, strengthened and implemented.