key: cord-0954310-n1c0rglb authors: Sahu, Kamal Kant; Raturi, Manish; Siddiqui, Ahmad Daniyal; Cerny, Jan title: Because Every Drop Counts: Blood Donation During the COVID-19 Pandemic date: 2020-07-10 journal: Transfus Clin Biol DOI: 10.1016/j.tracli.2020.06.009 sha: 8f60fb26c6d9c0156b2d546cc96afa5729ebe0a3 doc_id: 954310 cord_uid: n1c0rglb nan 9. ETHICAL STATEMENT: The article doesn't contain the participation of any human being and animal. 10 . VERIFICATION: All authors have seen the manuscript and agree to the content and data. All the authors played a significant role in the paper. The Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has trampled the health care system of many countries (1) . Blood transfusion services (BTS) in any hospital, hold the prime location and ensure smooth functioning of all elective and urgent surgical interventions of various traumas, emergency, obstetric cases, and the cancer patients throughout 24x7. In the wake of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, just like many other sectors of the health care system, BTS and blood banks are also struggling to cope up with the unforeseen challenges. One of the major challenges ahead of us is to maintain high spirits and persistent motivation amongst the volunteer donors to keep donating blood, even during the crisis of COVID-19 pandemic which is a war-like situation. To et al in their study found that fewer than 5% of Americans who are eligible to donate have actually donated blood (2) . These figures have likely worsened further during the current COVID-19 pandemic time period. We believe that there might be lots of concerns, confusion, and misleading rumors in the mind of donors with regards to blood donation during the pandemic period. Additionally, due to the government's interventions such as home sheltering, mass lockdown, and curtailment strategies towards public gatherings, amid the COVID-19 outbreak, the arrangement of the voluntary blood (4) . They reported that the major concern of the blood donors in their study was the fear of the acquiring SARS-COv-2 during blood donation. Avoiding public gatherings and maintaining social distancing to stop community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 are the key non-pharmacological interventions that have led to a significant drop in blood donation drives. Currently, the disequilibrium in the stores of blood products at various blood banks across the world is more so because of a decline in supply (reduced blood donations) than an increase in demand (more requirement). In usual days, the blood inventory of major health care centers have a stock up a one to two weeks supply. But, as blood collections have plummeted, now most of the blood banks are under-reserved and continue to be fragile. As of June 12, 2020, 29% of America's blood center's (One of US major blood donation societies) have less than 1 day supply to meet the requirements (5). Another major society, "American Red threshold of blood and platelet transfusions might vary from time to time, which is expected to make the blood demand crisis even "more complex" as these patients need specific blood parts or products like HLA matched platelets etc. (7, 8) . To ensure balancing of the blood collection with social distancing, the BTS's are issuing donation appointments to the volunteers over the phone, encouraging them to come forward individually either to the blood collection centers and or mobile collection facilities based on their convenience. To tide over the "blood crisis", FDA has recently lowered the deferral time period for blood donation from 12 months of abstinence from sex to three months for men who have sex with men (9). By calling for measures such as public awareness and clarification of the common queries, we believe that blood donation can be boosted up. Furthermore, the safety of both donors, as well as the staff, should remain the priority of any BTS during this time. It includes a regular and repeated cleaning of donation stations, including surfaces of potential contamination and wearing protective face masks by the donors and the BTS staff (Figure 1) . Additionally, the staff must be Evaluation and Research (CBER) has also requested the general public to come forward for blood donation (12) . American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) and other blood collecting organizations are regularly updating their websites with the latest developments to clarify blood volunteers' general concerns and to guide the various blood bank centers and donation camps worldwide (13). With views to the eligibility criteria, specific guidelines have been made considering the COVID-19 pandemic that needs to be observed (Figure 2) . We recommend following sites to our readers to refer for the latest updates on blood transfusions in COVID: It has already been 6 months since the first case of COVD-19 disease was reported (14) . But we still do not have any definitive treatment and most of the available therapeutics are being tried based on either previous outbreak experience, or preliminary results on COVID-19 patients. Recently, convalescent plasma therapy has been under consideration as a potential therapeutic strategy to transfer passive immunity from recovered individuals to active patients (15, 16) . While, the strategy seems logical and is based on positive evidence from SARS outbreak, convalescent plasma therapy could be challenging to execute. Finding an ABO matched compatible donor, significant neutralizing antibody titers, complete recovery from COVID-19 symptoms, a documented negative COVID-19 PCR, and willingness to donate are only few amongst the many challenges to accomplish convalescent plasma therapy donation. Proper education, counseling, awareness of civic responsibility, and an established and structured taskforce play a key role in encouraging recovered patients to donate plasma. Hospital-based blood donor centers have the advantage to readily identify the potential candidates while they are still recovering from COVID-19 and to initiate the documentation process for collection of convalescent plasma at a later date, which should save a lot of time and effort. Mayo Clinic is leading the COVID-19 expanded access program and is helping all the health care facilities, transfusion medicine programs, and blood donation societies for an effective execution of convalescent therapy program (18). In conclusion, COVID-19 is a pandemic crisis that needs a collaborative effort from blood donors, community, blood transfusion services, and administration. A message should be clearly sent out that "To wipe out COVID-19, we bid for social distancing, not social disengagement" COVID-2019: update on epidemiology, disease spread and management. Monaldi Arch Chest Dis The United States' potential blood donor pool: updating the prevalence of donor-exclusion factors on the pool of potential donors Management of blood supply and demand during the COVID-19 pandemic in King Abdullah Hospital Impact of COVID-19 on blood centres in Zhejiang province China Current perspective on pandemic of COVID-19 in the United States Cancer treatment during COVID-19 pandemic Re: From the frontlines of COVID-19-how prepared arewe as obstetricians? A commentary Prepare to adapt: Blood supply and transfusion support during the first 2 weeks of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic affecting Washington State. Transfusion Expansion of Hospital-Based Blood Collections in the Face of COVID-19 Associated National Blood Shortage The Times Staff. Donors needed to help maintain blood supplies amid COVID-19 pandemic. The Times of Northwest Indiana India Fights Back: COVID-19 Pandemic Treatment for emerging viruses: Convalescent plasma and COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma: Therapeutic Hope or Hopeless Strategy in the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Convalescent plasma therapy: A passive therapy for an aggressive COVID-19