Recent storms have disrupted blood donations and caused a blood shortage in central and southern Taiwan, with O-type blood the biggest need nationwide, Taipei Blood Center director Lin Min-chang (林敏昌) said today.
Speaking at a routine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) briefing, Lin said thousands of bags of blood have been reallocated from Taipei and Hsinchu to areas further south to ease the shortage, but he said there was still a need for donations.
Photo: CNA
The current national blood stockpile has reserves adequate for 8.1 days, but stocks of O-type blood are down to about 6.8 days of supply, according to the latest statistics from the Taiwan Blood Services Foundation.
The safety reserve for different types of blood is typically about seven to 10 days, with four to seven days considered low and less than four days as urgent.
Lin said blood donation rates are easily affected by the weather.
Blood banks in northern Taiwan are usually the ones that run low on blood, while those in southern Taiwan normally do not because of the relatively mild climate, he said.
Taiwan uses about 6,600 bags of blood daily, and the donation rate within Taiwan last year was 7.8 percent, exceeding the 5 percent specified by the WHO, Lin said.
On July 2, the FDA released its new Health Standards for Blood Donors, which relaxed age and weight thresholds.
Lin said that while there has been an increase in the number of people donating blood, the policy's long-term effectiveness remains unclear.
Meanwhile, when asked about domestically produced blood products, Lin said that apart from supplying whole blood and platelets, the foundation continues to push the production of essential drugs listed under the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act (藥事法), including immunoglobulin, albumin, and coagulation factors VIII and IX.
While domestic production of albumin is not self-sufficient yet due to the high demand for it, there are no issues with the supply of the other three, Lin said.
The foundation said it is hoping to increase the percentage of medicines produced from domestically donated blood from the current 50 percent to as high as 80 percent to ensure sufficient domestic supply in times of international crises.
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