Like every year, June 14 is World Blood Donor Day, a highlight for blood donation. The French Blood Establishment (EFS) reminds through this day the essential nature of this gesture, particularly before the summer period, when stocks are regularly low. This year, the EFS is launching the slogan “ All united by the gift », an invitation to mobilize as many people as possible around this gesture of solidarity. Donating blood helps save lives every day and supports patients who need it.
Issues surrounding blood donation
Labile blood products are intended for a multitude of patients, from accident victims to patients undergoing chemotherapy. A labile blood product is the product resulting from a blood donation and intended to be transfused into a patient. In France, labile blood products come exclusively from voluntary blood donors. They respect strict rules for donor selection, transport, analysis and storage, in order to guarantee the safety of the transfusion chain.
In an emergency situation, these products are essential to treat the consequences of acute hemorrhages. The shelf life of the products varies: 7 days for a platelet concentrate, 42 days for a red blood cell concentrate and one year for fresh frozen plasma.
From a blood donation, several products can be produced: red blood cell concentrate, plasma and platelet concentrate. Blood is a therapeutic response which today has no other alternative. And the need for blood is daily: 10,000 donations are needed every day in France, including 1,700 in Île-de-Franceto treat patients waiting for a blood transfusion.
The need for labile blood products is constant and varied, and the distribution of donations differs depending on the departments. In Île-de-France, over the year 2023, blood donation saw a slight drop of around 3%. 171,450 donors made approximately 256,700 donations, distributed as follows:
- 224,450 whole blood donations,
- just under 12,000 plasma donations
- 20,300 platelet donations.
28% of the Île-de-France collection was carried out in Don Houses, while mobile collections brought together 72% of donations.
Paris is the Ile-de-France department which concentrates the most donations for the year 2023 with 33.86% of donations (all types of donations combined, in Don Houses and mobile collections). It is followed by Yvelines (13.12% of Ile-de-France donations), Essonne (12.18%), Seine-et-Marne (11.34%), Hauts de Seine (10.80%). Next come Val-D’oise (7.78%), Seine-Saint-Denis (5.72%) and Val-de-Marne with 5.18% of donations.
Blood product and transfusion safety: collaborative work between the EFS and the ARS Île-de-France
The EFS is the monopolistic operator in charge of the management of labile blood products in France, in particular for collection, biological qualification, preparation and storage. It also ensures the regulation of stocks on a national scale to meet transfusion needs throughout the year. Blood products supplied to patients in Île-de-France partly come from other regions.
For its part, ARS Île-de-France contributes to transfusion safety and hemovigilance. Hemovigilance is a health monitoring system relating to blood transfusion from blood collection to monitoring of recipients. The Regional Hemovigilance and Transfusion Safety Coordinators of the ARS Île-de-France intervene in particular in health establishments to provide training, provide expertise, ensure the proper functioning of blood depots (inspection with the team of the Regional Health Autonomy Inspection and involvement in their regulatory authorization) and advise the hemovigilance correspondents as well as the staff involved in the transfusion process. The aim is, among other things, to prevent the appearance or recurrence of adverse effects linked to transfusion and blood donation and to improve the transfusion safety of patients.
Where to give blood ?
Throughout the month of June, EFS Île-de-France organizes various fundraising events in emblematic places to allow everyone to contribute to this vital cause:
Beyond these exceptional collections, find all the mobile collections organized every day as close as possible to places of life and work as well as the 12 donation centers in Île-de-France.
Make an appointment for a blood donation
To make an appointment, go to the Establishment Français du Sang website
