Plasma donors for medicine needed across Shropshire to make up shortfall
Donors in the county are being urged to step up and help by giving their plasma for medicines.
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) has launched a campaign urging people to donate.
Donation only restarted in April after a gap of more than 20 years and few people know what plasma donation is, which is contributing to a shortfall in donors. There are currently 8,627 active plasma donors in the new network, but NHSBT needed 15,000 donors by July.
NHSBT is appealing for 14,500 people to start donating plasma within the next three months to get donation back on track as the new plasma donation network develops.
Dr Gail Miflin, chief medical officer for NHSBT, said: "The long period without plasma donation in the UK means that while plasma donation is widely recognised in other countries, it has become unfamiliar to people here.
"We need the public’s help to expand our pool of plasma donors and meet the targets which will help make England more self-sufficient in the supply of these lifesaving medicines."
Donated plasma will be made into antibody medicines known as immunoglobulins, which are used to save the lives of people with immune disorders.
Around 17,000 people a year receive these medicines.
Many recipients are clinically vulnerable people who have been shielding during the pandemic.
Immunoglobulins are mainly used to treat immunodeficiencies – when people lack antibodies to fight infections – and neurological disorders, when the body’s immune system is attacking itself.
It takes hundreds of different donations to make one treatment.
To recruit the lifesaving donors needed, NHSBT is working with partners and running a campaign with a call to ‘join the donor pool’ over the summer, asking people who may not be able to enjoy a holiday to help build the pool of active donors.
There was a ban on using plasma from UK donors for these medicines from 1998 to February 2021, as a vCJD safety precaution.
The independent experts of the MHRA concluded that it could safely be restarted.
Currently the NHS depends entirely on imports of blood plasma from other countries – mainly the US – to manufacture immunoglobulins.
The plasma being donated to NHSBT now will reach hospitals in England from 2022 onwards, following the manufacturing process to turn it into a medicine.
Due to a large rise in global demand for immunoglobulins, both plasma and immunoglobulins have experienced ongoing pressures on supply in the UK and around the world in recent years.
The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on donations in the USA has also increased pressures on international supply.
Visit nhsbt.nhs.uk to find out how you can help.
