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Safe blood can save the lives of 800 mothers every day
This year’s World Blood Donor Day highlights the fact that safe blood saves the lives of mothers. It is a call to save the lives of the thousands of women worldwide who die every year due to complications related to pregnancy and childbirth.
The slogan of this year’s World Blood Donor Day campaign is “give blood for those who give life”. The campaign aims to improve access to safe blood to manage pregnancy-related complications as part of a comprehensive approach to maternal care. In doing so, the campaign could help to save the lives of the 800 women who die every day from pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications worldwide.
Almost all maternal deaths due to such complications occur in developing countries. Severe bleeding during delivery and after childbirth is a major cause of mortality, morbidity and long-term disability. Blood transfusion is recognized as a key life-saving intervention for the management of pregnancy- and childbirth-related complications.
On this occasion, Dr Ala Alwan, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean reiterated that “the most common cause of preventable maternal deaths in the Region is severe bleeding. Many of these deaths could be prevented through access to safe blood and blood products. In several countries, the greatest need for donated blood is for the management of severe anaemia and pregnancy-related complications. As well, in the countries experiencing complex humanitarian emergencies, the safety and availability of blood supply are at risk among affected populations”.
In the Eastern Mediterranean Region, low- and middle-income countries suffer from an acute shortage of safe blood. Most of these countries collect less than half of the blood needed, with an average donation rate of 10 donations per 1000 population. Voluntary non-remunerated blood donors comprise on average 50% of regional donors, ranging between 2% and 100% in some countries. Due to the inadequate supply of blood from voluntary unpaid donors, most countries depend on the families of patients for replacing the blood units required for transfusion.
“The primary challenge to improving blood safety and availability in the Region is the lack of national policies, strategies and action plans that reflect a comprehensive approach to addressing issues of safety, quality, sufficiency, availability and timely accessibility of blood and blood products” Dr Alwan added. “WHO’s strategy for blood safety and availability addresses five key areas: establishment of a well-organized, nationally-coordinated blood transfusion service; collection of blood from voluntary unpaid blood donors from low-risk populations; quality-assured testing for transfusion-transmittable infections, blood grouping and compatibility testing; safe and appropriate use of blood; and quality systems covering the entire transfusion process.”
WHO’s goal is for all countries to obtain all their blood supplies from 100% voluntary unpaid blood donations by 2020.
Globally, around 107 million units of donated blood are collected every year. Nearly 50% of these blood donations are collected in high-income countries, home to 15% of the world’s population. However, patients who are in urgent need of these donations do not always benefit from safe blood at the right time. The need for blood transfusion may emerge at any time, in rural or urban areas alike. Women are among the most affected groups in this respect.
On the occasion of World Blood Donor Day, WHO recommends a number of key actions for countries, partners and other stakeholders.
- Ministries of Health, particularly in countries with high rates of maternal mortality, take concrete steps towards ensuring that health facilities in their countries improve access to safe blood and blood products from volunteer donors for women giving birth.
- National blood services in countries with high rates of maternal mortality focus on safe blood for mothers in their activities and products for the 2014 campaign.
- Maternal health programmes and partnerships engage in the 2014 campaign.
- WHO and partners throughout the world highlight how safe blood from voluntary donors can save women’s lives everywhere.
First mass vaccination campaigns start since polio found in Iraq
Middle East polio outbreak response continues
Amman, 6 April 2014 – Polio vaccination campaigns commenced in Syria, Iraq and Egypt today, aiming to reach more than 20 million children over the next five days.
For Iraq, this will be the first nationwide vaccination campaign since a case of polio was confirmed by the Ministry of Health on 30 March in a six-month-old boy from Rusafa, northern Baghdad.
“The recent detection of a polio case in Iraq after a 14-year absence is a reminder of the risk currently facing children throughout the region,” said Maria Calivis, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “It is now even more imperative to boost routine immunizations to reach every child multiple times and do whatever we can to vaccinate children we could not reach in previous rounds. That’s the only way we will prevent this outbreak from spreading further.”
The current vaccination rounds are part of a comprehensive response to the announcement, in October 2013, that wild poliovirus of Pakistani origin had found its way to Syria. In recognition of the risk of further international spread, the governments of seven countries across the Middle East, with the assistance of local nongovernmental organizations, civil society groups and UN agencies, are endeavouring to reach 22 million children multiple times with polio vaccine. Since October 2013, 25 polio vaccination campaigns were completed across the region, including five rounds in Syria and six in Iraq.
The numbers of children being vaccinated in each round is rising; however, the outbreak response is yet to reach especially vulnerable groups such as children who are on the move fleeing violence from Syria or those living in the midst of active conflict.
“Midway into the implementation of this outbreak response plan, we’re reaching the vast majority of children across the Middle East,” said Chris Maher, WHO Manager for Polio Eradication and Emergency Support. “In the second phase of the outbreak response we must work with local partners to reach the hardest-to-reach – those pockets of children who continue to miss out, especially in Syria’s besieged and conflict areas and in remote areas of Iraq. We won’t stop until we reach them.”
Health teams in Lebanon and Turkey will also join the campaign on 10 and 18 April.
Since the outbreak was announced UNICEF has delivered 14 million doses of polio vaccines to Syria.
NOTE TO EDITORS
As of end of March 2014, 27 children have been paralyzed by polio in Syria: 18 of these children are in the contested governorate of Deir Ez Zour, four are in Aleppo, two in Idlib, two in Al-Hassakeh and one in Hama. Prior to this outbreak, no polio cases have been recorded in Syria since 1999. The risk of spread to countries in the Region and beyond is considered high, and health authorities from 21 countries have declared a public health emergency. Further polio immunization campaigns will be repeated across the region. In Syria, they will be carried out at monthly intervals until at least May 2014.
On 30 March 2014, the Iraqi Ministry of Health declared a polio outbreak when one case of polio was detected in a child in the Al-Rusafa area in the capital Baghdad.
Genetically-related polioviruses, which originated in Pakistan, have also been detected in sewage samples in Egypt in December 2012, and in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 2013.
Inside Syria over the past years since the conflict erupted in 2011, immunization activities have been significantly constrained by the violence and access restrictions. Cold chain equipment in a number of districts has been lost and mobile health teams have not been able to perform regular visits. This has led to missing out on vaccinating between 500 000-700 000 children in these areas.
For further information, please contact:
Juliette Touma, UNICEF Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa in Amman,
Rana Sidani, WHO Regional Office in Cairo,
Sona Bari, WHO Geneva,
