Department of Pathology, Transfusion Medicine Division, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Department of Hematology, Sultan Qaboos University Hospital Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman.
Expert Rev Hematol. 2023 Jul-Dec;16(7):501-514. doi: 10.1080/17474086.2023.2209716. Epub 2023 May 9.
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a historic public health crisis with widespread social and economic ramifications. The pandemic has also affected the blood supply, resulting in unprecedented and sustained blood shortages.
This review describes the challenges of maintaining a safe and sufficient blood supply in the wake of natural disasters, humanitarian emergencies, and pandemics. The challenges, which are accentuated in low- and high-income countries, span the impact on human capacity (affecting blood donors and blood collections personnel alike), disruption to supply chains, and economic sustainability. COVID-19 imparted lessons on how to offset these challenges, which may be applied to future pandemics and public health crises.
Pandemic emergency preparedness plans should be implemented or revised by blood centers and hospitals to lessen the impact to the blood supply. Comprehensive planning should address the timely assessment of risk to the blood supply, rapid donor recruitment, and communication of need, measures to preserve safety for donors and operational staff, careful blood management, and resource sharing.
COVID-19 大流行造成了广泛的社会和经济影响的历史性公共卫生危机。大流行还影响了血液供应,导致前所未有的持续血液短缺。
本综述描述了在自然灾害、人道主义紧急情况和大流行之后维持安全和充足的血液供应所面临的挑战。这些挑战在低收入和高收入国家更为突出,涵盖了对人力资源的影响(影响献血者和血液采集人员)、供应链中断以及经济可持续性。COVID-19 带来了如何应对这些挑战的经验教训,这些经验教训可能适用于未来的大流行和公共卫生危机。
血液中心和医院应实施或修订大流行应急准备计划,以减轻对血液供应的影响。全面规划应包括及时评估对血液供应的风险、快速招募献血者以及传达需求、保护献血者和工作人员安全的措施、仔细的血液管理和资源共享。