From today (Tuesday, May 10), all blood donation sessions in Hull will help make a medicine so blood donation saves even more lives.
Donors will not notice any changes to their donation and their red blood cells will continue to be used as normal.
However when their blood is taken away for routine processing, the blood plasma will now be separated out and used to make a specialist medicine.
The plasma contains antibodies which fight infections. These antibodies will be concentrated into immunoglobulin, a medicine which boosts or stabilises the immune system of people with immune disorders.
The medicine is expensive and demand has led to international supply pressure, so recovering the plasma will help bolster supplies to the NHS.
Around 285 people in Humberside were treated with immunoglobulin last year. Immunoglobulin is mainly used to treat:
- Immunodeficiencies, where you can’t make enough antibodies to fight infections. The antibodies in the immunoglobulin boost the immune system.
- Autoimmune disorders, where your immune system mistakenly attacks your own body in some way. The antibodies in the immunoglobulin help the immune system stabilise itself.
Plasma will initially only be recovered from selected female blood donors. In the future, it will be possible to recover plasma from all female and all male blood donors in Hull.
There are around 2,800 blood donors in Hull.
Eventually, across the whole country, NHSBT will recover around 250,000 litres of plasma a year for immunoglobulin medicine. In time, around 1 million blood donations a year will have this extra, lifesaving use.
An NHSBT spokesperson said: “This is great news for donors and great news for the NHS. Now, every single blood donation session in Hull will be able to provide plasma for medicines to benefit the NHS.
“Plasma is used to make unique, lifesaving treatments and every month. Thousands of people rely on these medicines to stay alive.”
Plasma from UK donors could not be used for immunoglobulin medicines between 1998 and 2021, one of the precautions put in place against variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The restriction was lifted by the Government in 2021, based on independent advice from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
The plasma being recovered will be stored, ready to be made into immunoglobulin when the full manufacturing and supply chain is in place.
New blood donors are always needed in Hull. There is a particular demand for donors with O negative blood and black donors.
Become a blood donor. Register today and book an appointment online, by calling 0300 123 23 23, or by downloading the GiveBloodNHS app.
