Expats tapped for rare blood

By Cai Wenjun and Xu Yiqiong  |   2008-8-8  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

THE city has begun a major campaign to encourage expatriates to become blood donors.

The city collected 80,000 liters of blood last year, but only about 100 liters came from expats.

The Shanghai Blood Center plans to invite expats to visit the center and carry out more activities to encourage foreigner donors, who have a much higher incidence of rare blood like Rh negative.

"More expatriate donors can mean bigger stocks of rare blood, which is always scarce in the city," said Lu Yao from the center.

"We had two cases of foreign patients requiring a large quantity of rare blood last year. Our storage couldn't meet the demand, but we managed to get the extra blood after information about the problem was spread in local expat circles.

"Most expatriates don't donate blood because they worry about safety and hygiene, especially after the reports of AIDS spreading through blood sold in Henan Province."

But Lu said administration was now very strict across the nation to ensure blood safety.

The center has recruited foreign volunteers to call expats and ask for donations and to serve in blood-collecting vehicles or at the center.

Kim Boo Youn from South Korea and Brian Kenny from the United States are working at the center. Kim, an 18-year-old student at an international school in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, said she had called many South Koreans for blood donations.

"But few of them actually took action even though most of them agreed on the phone," she said. "I even failed to persuade my friends to do so."

Kenny, also 18, said his experience was the same.

"Most foreigners consider it unsafe to give blood in China," he said.

"Even when giving blood, most people just give full blood instead of platelets because of safety concerns and poor knowledge of the procedure, in which a machine separates out the needed platelet and returns the rest of the blood to the donor."

According to the blood center, only three expatriates donated platelets last year.

Kenny said he had planned to donate blood yesterday as an example to his friends, but he didn't pass the physical check.

"I think it is safe to give blood here, even safer than in my country, after witnessing the working environment, the procedures and the equipment here," he said.

Only three to four in every 1,000 Chinese have Rh negative blood, but 10 to 15 percent of Western people have that type.

An elderly Indian woman hemorrhaged during surgery in the city last year. The center sent its 2,000-milliliter stock of Rh negative A type blood to the hospital immediately and the woman was saved after a family member called for friends to donate blood.