Global Database on Blood Safety: summary report 2009

Overview

Blood transfusion saves lives and improves health, but millions of patients needing transfusion do not have timely access to safe blood. The WHO programme on Blood Transfusion Safety monitors key quantitative blood safety indicators to assess the global situation on blood safety, monitor trends and progress and identify priority countries for support. This fact sheet is based on data collected for 2007.

In 2007, 162 countries provided data to WHO on 85.4 million blood donations. The data comes from countries that account for a total of 5.9 billion people, representing 92% of the global population. The report covers 7 997 blood centers which collected on average 9 000 donations per centre (range from 20 – 499 212). In developed countries, the average annual collection per blood centre was 13 600 (range 49 – 289 075), in transitional countries 6 000 (range 20 – 499 212) and in developing countries 2 800 (range 114 – 23 251).