"The blood supply situation is very tense"

A blood drive in Isère, in April, in full confinement.

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• Health situation requires, blood collection has become more complicated and the level of reserves is very worrying.

• Mobile collections, which represent up to 30% of donations in certain weeks, are hardly possible any more.

• The EFS, through the voice of Hervé Meinrad, its fundraising director, calls on donors and usual donors for help and wants to be reassuring about health rules.

Summer is always a time of stress for the blood supply.

But this year of the coronavirus, is of course worse than the others.

Containment but also deconfinement have gone through this.

Difficult to go to the hospital to donate blood serenely, even harder for the French Blood Establishment to come and meet donors on their numerous mobile blood drives.

wanted to take stock with the director of the collection and production of blood products at the EFS, Hervé Meinrad.

What is the state of stocks today?

We had a difficult summer with stocks that fell very quickly.

We found ourselves at the end of August with a low stock, we made a first call which resulted in a very moderate response because the health situation meant that the French had a lot to think about.

So we re-issued a second call ten days ago to deal with a really extremely low stock.

We had not seen him at this level for over ten years.

It is a very tense situation.

How can we reassure people and invite them to come and give despite the health crisis?

On blood drives, we ensure all the necessary measures for distancing to ensure the protection of donors and staff: we have masks for everyone;

Hygiene measures are applied for the cleaning of the rooms and the equipment, the distance is respected… There is therefore no need to worry about this aspect.

Then, this virus, Covid-19, is a respiratory virus, transmitted by the airways.

It is not known to be transmitted through blood.

No such case is referenced.

There are nevertheless precautionary measures that are taken, above all to guarantee the absence of exposure for all the people who are on the collection.

So people who have been ill can give back twenty-eight days after symptoms disappear, and people who have been known to have contact are adjourned for fourteen days.

The EFS organizes numerous collections “outside the walls”, in universities or companies, is it still possible or the situation makes the task much too difficult?

Our production tool is organized around 120 fixed sites and around a hundred mobile collections every day, under normal circumstances.

Today, we have difficulties with these mobile collections since part of it is organized in companies or in schools and universities.

Since the start of the pandemic in March, we have had great difficulties organizing them in these two sectors.

To give you an idea of ​​their importance, some weeks these collections represent up to 30% of blood donations.

We therefore no longer have access to these collections and when we have access to them, many people are teleworking.

Likewise, at universities there are far fewer students present with distance learning courses.

In these two sectors, since mid-March, we have lost 100,000 donations, or two full weeks of normal collection.

We had greatly reduced our presence in these two sectors at the start of the school year but we had maintained certain collections in the belief that it would be playable (since we plan it well in advance) but not at all.

So we are working to find other drop-off points and replace these corporate and university collections.

On a more practical level: how to donate blood?

To be able to donate blood you must be between 18 and 70 years old, be of legal age, in good health to be able to carry out the pre-hearing interview with a health staff who will assess whether you can donate blood safely for you and for recipients who will then be treated with the products of your donation.

There is no need to be fasting.

The contraindications that exist are, for 80% of them, temporary.

It can be linked to an infectious episode or taking antibiotics in the fifteen days before or a dental treatment which means that you cannot give for twenty-four hours ... People can therefore come back a little later to donate blood .

It is important that those who used to donate to our mobile collections can join us at our fixed collection sites or at the mobile collection sites in town.

We need their donations.

Lille

"Since deconfinement, there is no longer anyone" who donates blood

Health

Blood reserves are dwindling, the situation is "extremely worrying"

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