Padma Ranjan used to pass a blood donation center on her bus ride to work in Vancouver and wished she could donate.
Her family regularly donated blood when she was growing up in Malaysia. She moved to the United Kingdom in the late 1970s and arrived in Canada about 10 years later.
Her desire to donate blood intensified in recent years when her husband developed internal bleeding in the upper intestine and required weekly blood transfusions.
“When he first needed blood, I was like, ‘Oh my God. I could have given,” said M.me Ranjan, aged 69.
The years spent by Mme Ranjan in the United Kingdom prevented her from donating to Canada due to concerns about the possible transmission of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease — the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or “bovine spongiform encephalopathy.” Mad Cow “.
But last November, Health Canada authorized the lifting of the donation ban for people who lived or traveled for an extended period of time in the United Kingdom, Ireland or France in the 1980s and 1990s.
Canadian Blood Services began allowing this previously ineligible group to donate on December 4.
Mme Ranjan, who is now retired, rolled up her sleeves the next day and traveled from her home in suburban Richmond, British Columbia, to the same donation center in Vancouver that she used to pass every day. days during his journey.
She is one of approximately 4,000 people who donated between December 4 and January 19 after learning the ban had been lifted, Canadian Blood Services said.
This number includes both new donors and people who tried to donate in the past but were not eligible because they had been in the UK, Ireland or France.
“It’s a very good response,” commented Ron Vézina, vice-president of public affairs at Canadian Blood Services.
The agency has set a goal of getting at least 7,000 new donors who were previously ineligible due to the ban over the next year, he said.
“We’re more than halfway there very early in the game. But that doesn’t mean we have to take our foot off the accelerator,” Mr. Vézina said.
An adequate blood supply requires a total of 100,000 new donors each year, he explained.
“It’s a significant contributor to that, to meet demand from hospitals and patients.” »
Daily donations needed
Health Canada determined that the ban could be lifted after nearly 30 years of research and monitoring, which clearly showed that people who traveled to countries affected by mad cow disease during the 1980s and 1990s could now donate blood safely, Dr.D Aditi Khandelwal, medical advisor to Canadian Blood Services.
There have been two cases of illness in Canada, said DD Khandelwal, who is also a hematologist and blood transfusion physician in Toronto.
One of them lived in the United Kingdom and the other in Saudi Arabia and consumed beef imported from the United Kingdom. These cases occurred in 2002 and 2011 respectively, she said.
We now know that the average time between exposure and development of the disease is eight and a half years, she said, and that it can be fatal in about 14 months.
This means that people who lived in high-risk countries in the 1980s and 1990s would have developed the disease long before today, she explained.
An additional safeguard is the fact that white blood cells are reduced or removed from donated blood before transfusion, added DD Khandelwal.
Canada’s blood supply is currently “at or near optimal levels,” meaning there is a five- to eight-day supply, Vézina said.
In addition to people who were previously affected by the ban, many other people in Canada donated during the holiday season, he said.
But to maintain an adequate supply, people must make continuous donations throughout the year, because blood products are fresh and cannot be stored or stored, Vezina stressed.
Mme Ranjan plans to do his part to make this happen and already has his next donation appointment scheduled for the end of February.
“I will give as much as I can, for as long as I can,” she said.
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