Chairperson and committee
Chairperson: Jay Epstein (USA)
Vice Chair: Silvano Wendel (Brazil)
Secretary: Thierry Burnouf (Taiwan)
Treasurer: Martin Smid (Netherlands)
Members at large:
Claude Tayou Tagny (Cameroon)
Nelson Tsuno (Japan)
Salwa Hindawi (Saudi Arabia)
Jean-Claude Faber (Luxembourg)
Susan Stramer (USA)
Membership
The Working Party currently has 66 members representing 29 different countries.
There were 19 new members in the last year. Working subgroup participation includes: Voluntary versus Replacement Donation (24, led by Nelson Tsuno); Needs versus Demand (23, led by Jean Stanley); Harmonization of Regulations and Standards (10, led by Susan Stramer); Safe Plasma Proteins (10, co-led by Jean-Claude Faber and Thierry Burnouf).
Meetings and Teleconferences
Plenary meeting of the WP: 18 June 2023 (on-site and virtual) at the ISBT Congress in Gothenburg
- Review of recent accomplishments and reports from subgroups
- Keynote presentation on establishment of the International Coalition for Safe Plasma Proteins (ICSPP)
- “Subgroup for Cryoprecipitate and Plasma for Fractionation” renamed as “Subgroup for Safe Plasma Proteins”
- Proposal to reactivate a subgroup on Need versus Demand
Meetings of the Organizing Committee: November 2023, Febuary 2024
- Advice to subgroups
- Review of ISAC communications from meetings in June 2023 and January 2024
- Membership survey and subsequent establishment of the Subgroup on Need versus Demand
- Preparation for the GBS Business Meeting at the Congress in Barcelona
Activities during the period
Subgroup on Need versus Demand (Jean Stanley, Chair)
- Convened a first meeting in January 2024
- Accomplished a literature search to explore challenges and identify methodologies used to measure disparities between need, demand and the supply of whole blood and blood components for routine transfusion in LMICs in preparation for a “scoping” review
Subgroup on Harmonization of Regulations and Standards (Susan Stramer, Chair)
- Circulated a second, streamlined survey within ISBT on Donor and Donation Testing for TTIDs and engaged an expert consultant to assist with analysis of the survey data
- 156 responses were determined to include 131 complete surveys representing 74 geographic areas within 65 countries.
- For each of 30 countries with multiple responses a single consensus response was generated.
- Areas were categorized by World Bank Income Groups for ongoing analysis
Subgroup on Voluntary versus Replacement Blood Donation (Nelson Tsuno, Chair)
- Accomplished a literature review
- Completed a survey of ten countries that transitioned from replacement to VNRD (five achieving >90% and five underachieving with <90%) to examine importance of external factors using elements under the PESTELE framework.
- Common elements across countries included Political: policy making by the government; Economic: (none); Social: awareness about the importance of VNRD, public education, community engagement, reward, and desire to improve blood safety: Technological: testing for blood safety, and social media; Environmental: construction of blood services and community generation; Legal: regulating remunerated donation, regulating the obligation of blood services, and legal reward; and Ethical: nonmaleficence and fidelity. Number of elements identified in underachieving countries was more variable than in achieving countries.
- Hosted an invited meeting at the ISBT Congress in Cape Town, November 2023, on Achieving 100% VNRD in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Providing ongoing assistance to WHO to update guidance on donor selection
Subgroup on Safe Plasma Proteins (Jean-Claude Faber and Thierry Burnouf, Co-Chairs)
- As the ISBT Planning Group for the ICSPP Steering Committee (SC)
- Hosted weekly meetings of the planning group and periodic meetings of the SC
- Successfully applied for 3-year funding from the ISBT Foundation for ICSPP projects
- Obtained unanimous endorsement of an ICSPP organized Project on “National Blood System (NBS) Strengthening in Ethiopia to support access to safe plasma protein products from domestic plasma” at an SC meeting on 25 January 2024
- Worked with WHO to provide a webinar in French on Blood Regulation 4-7 December 2023 to support blood regulators in Senegal (as part of an ongoing ICSPP project) and other countries in the region
- Initiated development of a new GBS supported project on “Local preparation of intravenous immunoglobulins, pathogen reduced (IVIG-PR) using VIPS technology” in response to a mid-2023 request from the Armauer Hansen Research Institute in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
- Provided informational presentations on activities of the WP at scientific meetings:
- Meeting with Dr Que Tran Ngoc, Director, National Blood Center, NIHBT, Hanoi, Vietnam, April, 2023
- IPFA/PEI International Workshop on Surveillance and Screening of Blood-borne Pathogens, Bologna, Italy, May 2023
- APPLN Workshop on contract plasma fractionation, Vietnam, September 2023
- WHO ECBS, (virtual) October 2023
- Transfusion 2023, Indus Hospital Network, Karachi, Pakistan, October 2023
- ISBT Congress in Cape Town, SA, November, 2023
- Academic Institute for International Development of Transfusion Medicine, The Netherlands, January 2024
- AfSBT Congress in Kampala, Uganda, March 2024
- Co-organized and participated in an ISBT/IPFA scientific session and subsequent Workshop on Contract Plasma Fractionation at the ISBT Congress in Cape Town, 20 Nov 2023
- Working with WHO to develop guidance on cross-border movement of plasma intended for contract fractionation
Working Party Publications
- Burnouf T, Epstein J, Faber J-C, Smid WM, on behalf of the Working Party for Global Blood Safety of the International Society of Blood Transfusion. Stepwise options for preparing therapeutic plasma proteins from domestic plasma in low- and middle-income countries.
- Epstein JS, Maryuningsih Y, Faber J-C, Smid WM, Burnouf T. Inclusion of Cryoprecipitate, Pathogen-Reduced on the WHO Model Lists of Essential Medicines for Adults and Children: A Call for Action. Blood Transfusion
