The Donors and Donation working party aims to promote best practice and facilitate knowledge sharing through education, research and exchange of ideas/resources in the area of donors and donation (including blood, plasma, platelets, stem cells, cellular therapies etc.)
Chairperson and committee
Chairperson: Rachel Thorpe (Australia)
Secretary: Jennie Haw (Canada)
Education Officer: Noriko Namba (Japan)
Subgroups
Public Health Partnerships
- Number of participants: 10
- Chairpersons: Kelly Holloway (Canada), Rachel Thorpe (Australia)
QMS recurrent failures
- Number of participants: 10
- Chairperson(s): Champa Manchanayake (Scotland), Jennie Haw (Canada)
Recruitment and Retention
- Number of participants: 14
- Chairperson(s): Rishiraj Sinha (India), Juan Cisneros Carrasco (Mexico)
Iron Management
- Number of participants: 11
- Chairperson(s): Noriko Namba (Japan)
Membership
The Working Party has 55 members from 33 countries: USA, Australia, Norway, Kenya, Canada, The Netherlands, India, Nigeria, Mexico, Turkey, Malaysia, Japan, Pakistan, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Iran, Denmark, South Africa, Myanmar, Scotland, Hong Kong, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Peru, Colombia, Ukraine, Romania, Spain, Portugal, Bangladesh, Serbia, England.
Meetings
Since the new leadership team took over in July 2024 we have held one online meeting in February 2025. Dr Surendra Karki from Australian Red Cross Lifeblood presented his work on ‘Long-term health impacts of blood donation: Experience from a cohort study in Australia’, the sub-groups presented updates and discussed planning for the meeting in Milan.
The leadership team has met at least monthly to discuss plans for the coming year and to plan our meeting in Milan.
Meetings
A hybrid meeting was held at the ISBT regional congress in Milan in May 2025
- Four presenters from the WP spoke on challenges and innovations within their countries to improve donor engagement. We heard from Femi Ajai on the challenge of ensuring the safety of the blood supply with the current mix of voluntary and non-voluntary donors in Nigeria; Rodin Simo on on the pilot phase of the Bendaki Blood program in Cameroon, Juan Cisneros Carrasco spoke to the challenge of VNRBD in Mexico and Nyarambe Wigina spoke to the sustainability challenges of blood transfusion services in Kenya, particularly following the withdrawal of USAID support.
- The WP agreed to pull together a toolkit of resources on the WP page on the website to detail the pool of expertise that people can reach out to o address some of the challenges discussed by the speakers.
- The group also agreed to write the presentations up for a piece in Transfusion Today.
Updates from the subgroups
- Champa Manchanayake reported updates from the QMS recurrent failures subgroup. Jennie and Champa are planning to conduct an international forum that will be published in Vox Sanguinis
- Noriko Namba reported updates from the Iron Management subgroup. She noted that this subgroup has met twice and they are still trying to decide projects. While Hb /ferritin testing is of interest to many institutions, a project on this will require funding. The group will plan to submit a funding proposal in 2026.
- Rachel Thorpe reported for the Public Health Partnership group and noted that the team is engaging in desk research to see what partnerships are in place, with a scoping review being led by members from Canadian Blood Services.
Virtual meeting, December 4 2025
- New members were welcomed, and the leadership team and aims of the working party were introduced.
- The group discussed the outstanding requirements for the forthcoming edition of Transfusion Today which will focus on donors and donation. Champa Manchanayake and Trileeshiya Withanawasam agreed to contribute articles for this edition. Barbara Masser agreed to help with the Kahoot questions.
- The group discussed the upcoming meeting in Malaysia and asked for volunteers to assist with planning the donors and donation focussed session.
- Juan Cisneros Carrasco discussed his planned project on transitions to voluntary non-remunerated donation.
- Noriko Namba discussed the donor selection toolkit that she would like to compile that will summarise eligibility criteria across blood operators and will be hosted on the D&D WP page and asked for volunteers to help with this.
- Updates were given from the sub-groups
Activities during the period
Major Projects and Initiatives
- Transfusion Today – In Focus section January 2026: the D&D working party contributed an editorial, seven articles and Kahoot questions for the January edition of Transfusion Today. This was a great opportunity for the group to work together and to inform others in ISBT about some of the challenges and work being undertaken in the area of donors and donation.
- QMS Recurrent failures: Vox Sanguinis International Forum on management of recurrent discards due to QMS failures - completed survey of international blood operators (n=14) on practices related to management of donations and donors when recurrent QMS failures occur
- Public Health Partnerships A literature review mapping the literature on how blood operators intersect with public health is underway and we aim for this to be submitted for publication by the end of 2026.
- Iron subgroup Femi Ajayi, in collaboration with Noriko, has planned a study to longitudinally assess post-donation hemoglobin and ferritin levels and to conduct an international comparison of recovery to normal values. Although similar international comparisons have been reported previously, there is limited evidence from countries in Africa and Asia. This study will prospectively evaluate longitudinal changes in hemoglobin and ferritin levels within the same blood donors in Nigeria. In parallel, existing data from multiple countries, including Asian countries, will be collected to enable an international comparison incorporating Nigeria. Funding for ferritin measurements in Nigeria has been secured from the ISBT. The Iron Subgroup will undertake this project.
- Donor toolkit The Donor Selection Toolkit is planned to consist of five chapters: Ethics, General Guidelines, Eligibility Criteria, Examples of Donor History Questionnaires, and References. In addition, a survey on eligibility criteria is currently being planned to facilitate the sharing and comparison of criteria across multiple countries.
- Transitions to 100% voluntary non-remunerated donation A Masters of Public Health (MPH) student (Suhaila Nasution) will work with Rachel in 2026 on a review to identify and summarise the literature on how other countries have made the transition from paid/replacement donation to VNR donation.
- Other A number of WP members contributed feedback to the draft Maldives ‘National Guidelines on Blood Donor Assessment and Selection Procedures as requested by WHO South-East Asia Regional Office (SEARO).
- Collaboration and Partnerships The donors and donation working party is planning a joint project on transitions to 100% voluntary blood donation with the global blood safety working party. Members of both working parties will meet virtually and in-person in Malaysia. Numerous members of the D&D working party have expressed interest in sharing their expertise on this topic.
Summary
Key achievements for 2025-2026 were contributing to the January edition of Transfusion Today, the Iron subgroup successfully receiving funding to conduct their activity and the QMS recurrent failures group undertaking a Vox Sanguinis Interntional Forum that will be submitted in 2026.
