If you have a little one-hour slot in your day that you don’t know what to do with, the French Blood Establishment has a ready-made solution for you: donate your red blood cells. The EFS published last Tuesday a “vital emergency bulletin” calling on all citizens to cross the door of a collection center to donate blood. We explain to you why this is the first time in its history that
EFS make such a call.
What does “vital emergency” mean with regard to blood donations?
In recent days, EFS reserves have fallen below the safety threshold to a critical level never before reached. In its stocks, the Establishment only has 70,000 blood products at the national level when it needs 100,000. “If this decline continues, we risk not being able to provide blood products to all our patients and therefore having to postpone transfusions or non-urgent surgical operations”, assures Doctor Michel Jeanne, director of EFS Nouvelle-Aquitaine. where reserves are now capped at 6,300.
A prioritization of patients which could put them at risk, but also lead to a traffic jam at the level of care, because blood products “cannot be replaced by other therapeutic treatment”, specifies the doctor.
How did we get here ?
For two years, the health crisis linked to the Covid-19 epidemic has severely penalized blood collections. “With telework which has become widespread, we collect less in companies, but also in universities and schools, because the students are at a distance”, notes Doctor Michel Jeanne. With nurses and doctors requisitioned in hospitals, the EFS had to cancel collections, for lack of personnel.
If the French Blood Establishment had kept its head above water until now, the Omicron wave definitely made it dive. Between positive staff or contact cases and donors who were less mobilized, “because they were asking questions about vaccination, contamination, the health pass”, the situation worsened in January, deplores the doctor.
How to get out of this “vital emergency”?
To return to an acceptable level, the solution is simple: “We need urgent donations, now and massively,” says Dr. Jeanne. The rules for giving have therefore been somewhat relaxed. If donors can book a time slot on the EFS website or on the “Blood Donation” mobile app on
iOS Where
android, it is also possible to go to an EFS collection center without an appointment. “It is not necessary to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, nor to have a vaccination pass”, insists the doctor.
For people who test positive for Covid-19, the rules will also be lightened from Tuesday, February 15. Thus, those with a complete vaccination schedule must wait seven days from the onset of symptoms before donating blood. The period drops to five days if they present a negative PCR or antigen test. For non-vaccinated positive people or with an incomplete vaccination schedule, they will have to wait ten days after the onset of symptoms. With a negative screening test, the time frame is reduced to seven days.