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Global News

General

• Latest blog by Eric Ching: Mix and Match - High Incidence Antigens (Fun Quiz)
• In memoriam: Dutch immunologist Johannes Joseph "Jon" van Rood died at 91, on 21 July 2017
  • Jon van Rood, a pioneer of transplantation. He just missed the Nobel Prize (In Dutch, right click to translate)
  • In 1978, van Rood was awarded the Wolf Prize in Medicine, jointly with George D. Snell and Jean Dausset, "for his contribution to the understanding of the complexity of the HLA system in man and its implications in transplantation and in disease".
• Indigenous people around the globe more likely to be infected by HBV and/or HCV than others (10 Aug. 2017)
• Zipline's ambitious medical drone delivery, including blood, in Africa (MIT Technology Review, 8 June 2017) | Now expanded to Tanzania (See below)
• End-of-life care poor for elderly patients with AML (23 Aug. 2017) | Hospices not offering transfusion a factor
  • Wang R, Zeidan AM, Halene S, Xu X, Davidoff AJ, Huntington SF, et al. Health care use by older adults with acute myeloid leukemia at the end of life. Clin Oncol. 2017 Aug 7:JCO2017727149. [Epub ahead of print]
• Sports hype of platelet-rich plasma 'powerful marketing tool' but distorts the science (15 Aug. 2017)
  • Rachul C, Rasko JEJ, Caulfield T. Implicit hype? Representations of platelet rich plasma in the news media. PLoS One. 2017 Aug 9;12(8):e0182496.
• To tackle the contaminated blood scandal, Britain must learn from Canada (1 Aug. 2017, oped, The Guardian)
• Canada: CBS International Symposium: RBCs: Still Vital After All These Years? (Sept 9, 2017, Toronto, ON)

Canada

• BC PBCO job opportunities:
  • Provincial Director, BC Provincial Blood Coordinating Office
  • Clinical Coordinator, Quality and Utilization Management
• Canada needs blood plasma. We should pay donors to get it (oped, 24 Aug. 2017)
  • Author Peter Jaworski co-authored, 'Markets Without Limits', the primary thesis of which is, "anything you may permissibly do for free, you may permissibly do for money."
• CBS seeks $855m to boost plasma supply (14 Aug. 2017) | Note: BC, AB, ON, QC constitute 86% of Canada's population
• Winnipeg clinic battles criticism of pay-for-plasma services (8 Aug. 2017) | Must register to view article
• Health Canada appoints 2 members of 'Expert Panel on Immune Globulin Product Supply and Related Impacts in Canada' (7 July 2017)
• CBC and Sundance TV team for miniseries 'Unspeakable' on Canada's tainted blood scandal (29 July 2017)
• Moncton’s pay-for-plasma clinic opens, aims for 1,000 weekly donors (27 July 2017)
• BC PBCO/CBS: 17th Annual Education Session on Blood Transfusion Issues (28 Sept. 2017, Kamloops BC)
• CBS: Upcoming educational events
• Also see Diseases below (BC WNV update)

Australia

• IVIG from USA donors who had the flu or got flu vaccine to be used to treat patients with influenza in small clinical trial (28 Aug. 2017)
• The donor who saved over 2 million children (25 Aug. 2017)
  • Donated plasma with potent anti-D ~3x/week for 60 yrs

Bangladesh

• Why 10 million Bangladeshis have hepatitis B (28 July 2017) | Poor blood donor screening tests and vertical transmission from mother to child significant factors

China

• Liver problems boost demand for US blood plasma (19 Aug. 2017) | China consumes half world’s supply of human serum albumin

India

• 1% of Chief Minister's Health Insurance Scheme funds sought to help blood banks with voluntary donations (24 Aug. 2017)
• Tracing donors infected with HBV and HCV major obstacle (8 Aug. 2017)
• Patients’ kin say private hospitals in Mumbai force them to replace blood against norms (31 July 2017)
• Chhatisgarh State to introduce blood transfusion motor bikes to deliver blood to hospitals (28 July 2017)

Pakistan

• Inefficient, ineffective Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority (3 Aug. 2017)

Tanzania

• Government announces Zipline's drones will make up to 2,000 deliveries/day beginning in 2018 (24 Aug. 2017)
  • Background on Tanzania and blood delivery via drones (Nice video by Design Boom, 24 Aug. 2017)

UK

• Council decides further sanctions for nurse after 18 mth suspension for 5 charges, one involving transfusion, ends 20 Oct. 2017 (Conduct and Competence Committee, 3-5 July 2017, Nursing and Midwifery Council)
• Examining how commercialisation in the NHS can endanger our health (18 Aug. 2017)
  • Sheffield Save our NHS
• Northern Ireland: Apology over Indian blood donation 'embarrassment' (15 Aug. 2017)
• Shropshire blood banks may be 'collecting too much' amid service review (7 Aug. 2017)

USA

• Clinical trial of transfusion therapies for heart attack patients may place them in danger without fully disclosing risks, says consumer advocacy group (1 Aug. 2017)

Yemen

• Yemen teeters on brink of new 'catastrophe' as blood bank eyes closure (10 Aug. 2017)

Industry news

• Ambrosia: Teenagers' blood being sold for €6,750 a shot (20 Aug. 2017) | USA's Ambrosia 'young blood' starts to get media coverage overseas
• Sisu Global Health: Low-cost auto-transfusion device Hemafuse wins First Mile Innovation Challenge (6 May 2017) Background:
  • Hemafuse news from 2015
  • USAID item on Hemafuse (26 July 2017)
• Also see Zipline in General and Tanzania above

Diseases in the news

• HBV/HCV: See General above (Indigenous people article)
• HEV: See Journals (Hoad, et al) below
• WNV (Canada): CBS, BC & Yukon Region, WNV Update (28 Aug. 2017)
• HCV/HIV: See General above (oped, The Guardian) and Canada above (New minseries)

Resource Library / Links

• Canada (via BC PBCO): CBS, BC & Yukon Region, WNV Update (28 Aug. 2017)
• BC PBCO update to Technical Operations Manual (TOM)
  • TMP0002: Blood Product Inventory Assessment, Order and Receipt
  • AOR 0004: Receiving Blood Products from CBS (v 2.0)
  • AOR 0014: Receiving and Issuing Untested or Incompletely Tested Blood Components from Canadian Blood Services (v 1.0)
  • TMP0014: Pretransfusion Examination
  • PTE 0017: Managing Transfusion Requests of Patients on Daratumumab Therapy (v 1.0)
• Canada: CBS-sponsored LearnTransfusion series
  • ORBCon 2017 webcast schedule
• NEW TM blog: We are the world (Musings on the humanitarianism of selling body tissues)
  • July blog: Both sides now (Musings on where careers take us)

Journals, etc.

Free full text papers | * 1 or more Canadian authors

Free sample issues (Jan. 2016 unless indicated otherwise)

Seminars in Hematology (Features Hemophilia) | Transfusion (AABB) | Transfusion Medicine (BBTS, Jan. 2015)

Transfusion Medicine Reviews | Vox sanguinis (ISBT) | J Med Ethics (Jan. 2015)

Asian Journal of Transfusion Science (HTML Free text, Jan-June, 2016) | View as e-book (takes time to load)

• * Duncan JA, Nahirniak S, Onell R, Clarke G. Two cases of the variant RHD*DAU5 allele associated with maternal alloanti-D. Immunohematology. 2017 Jun;33(2):60-3.
• Ellingson KD, Sapiano MRP, Haass KA, Savinkina AA, Baker ML, Henry RA, et al. Cost projections for implementation of safety interventions to prevent transfusion-transmitted Zika virus infection in the United States. Transfusion. 2017 Jun;57 Suppl 2:1625-33.
• Ellingson KD, Sapiano MRP, Haass KA, Savinkina AA, Baker ML, Chung KW, et al. Continued decline in blood collection and transfusion in the United States-2015. Transfusion. 2017 Jun;57 Suppl 2:1588-98.
• Hoad VC, Seed CR, Fryk JJ, Harley R, Flower RLP, Hogema BM, et al. Hepatitis E virus RNA in Australian blood donors: prevalence and risk assessment. Vox Sang. EPub 18 Aug 2017.
• * Johnson JA, MacDonald K, Clarke G, Skoll A. No. 343-routine non-invasive prenatal prediction of fetal RHD genotype in Canada: the time is here. J Obstet Gynaecol Can. 2017 May;39(5):366-73.
• Merz E-M, Zijlstra BJH, de Kort WLAM. Blood donor show behaviour after an invitation to donate: The influence of collection site factors. Vox Sang. EPub 18 Aug 2017.
• Rachul C, Rasko JEJ, Caulfield T. Implicit hype? Representations of platelet rich plasma in the news media. PLoS One. 2017 Aug 9;12(8):e0182496.
• Sandler SG. Bloody Brilliant: A History of Blood Groups and Blood Groupers. Immunohematology. 2017 Jun;33(2):82-3. | Review of the AABB book by Steven Pierce and Marion Reid
• Wang R, Zeidan AM, Halene S, Xu X, Davidoff AJ, Huntington SF, et al. Health care use by older adults with acute myeloid leukemia at the end of life. Clin Oncol. 2017 Aug 7:JCO2017727149. [Epub ahead of print]
• Zwiers C, Lindenburg ITM, Klumper FJ, de Haas M, Oepkes D, Van Kamp IL. Complications of intrauterine intravascular blood transfusion: lessons learned after 1678 procedures. Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol. 2017 Aug;50(2):180-6.