Red Cross Flanders to open two new donor centres a year to collect more plasma
Red Cross Flanders will open two new donor centres per year in the coming years. This should bring the number of donor centres to 24 by 2029, compared to 14 now.
Since 2018, the Red Cross has had to collect 5 per cent more plasma annually, at the request of the federal Health minister. Outgoing minister Frank Vandenbroucke visited the UZ Leuven donor centre in Gasthuisberg on Thursday.
The ambitions around plasma donations came as a global scarcity of the product emerged. “Plasma is increasingly used for transfusions,” Philippe Vandekerckhove, CEO of Red Cross Flanders, said. “On the other hand, China and some African countries have also started to use plasma more.”
Increased targets
To make sure there is sufficient supply in Belgium, so as not to have to depend on the international market, increased targets have been set. Collecting 5 per cent more plasma every year means collecting over 205,000 litres of plasma by 2029. In 2018, the target was around 120,000 litres. This represents a 71 per cent increase in just over 10 years.
The first new centre will open in Oudenaarde in the spring of 2025. Other new locations will be determined and announced later.
Apart from transfusions, plasma is also used as a raw material in medicines, for example for patients with haemophilia, cancer or Parkinson's disease. At the new sites, donors will predominantly be able to give plasma, but blood donations will also be possible.
People who lived in the UK for more than six months between 1980 and 1996 are not eligible to donate blood and plasma in Belgium.
#FlandersNewsService | © BELGA PHOTO DIRK WAEM
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