In Germany, an average of 10,000 blood preparations are used every day. Accordingly, blood donations are needed every day, but especially now at the time of the corona epidemic. The problem, however, is that the number of blood donors is declining. That’s why the blood donation services are appealing to continue donating blood ! We explain how high the risk of infection is when donating and receiving blood and who is now eligible to donate blood.
In order for patient care to function smoothly, blood donations are needed, especially in the early phase of the coronavirus , in order to have a supply in the event of an enormous increase in the epidemic. If there are too few blood donations, operations have to be postponed and people, e.g. B. after an accident or during cancer therapy are no longer adequately supplied with blood. Therefore, despite the coronavirus, going to the blood donation service is important. It serves the community and can save lives in an emergency. In addition, the risk of contracting the coronavirus when donating blood is very low.
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Who is allowed to donate blood during the Corona crisis?
With a view to the corona pandemic, anyone who wants to donate should
- be healthy and have no coronavirus symptoms,
- have not been in a coronavirus risk area in the last four weeks and
- have not had contact with (potentially) infected persons within the last four weeks.
Can I infect myself or others by donating blood?
Strict hygiene and safety standards apply in every blood donation service. In addition, these have now been reinforced to protect the donor and recipient. In order to ensure the greatest possible safety, the staff now pays even more attention to disinfection, contactless fever measurement and regular ventilation.
In addition, you will hardly find any infected people in a donor location, since someone who goes to donate blood generally feels healthy and there are no large gatherings of people in donor locations.
Can you get infected by donating blood?
Similar safety standards apply to blood donations as to pharmaceuticals. According to scientists, there is no evidence that the corona virus can be transmitted through a blood donation. This was also shown by the SARS and MERS epidemic, which were also triggered by corona viruses.
