World Blood Donor Month - Know more about Blood Donations

Facts and figures on our blood service

The South African National Blood Service (SANBS) collects more than 1 000 000 units of blood a year. Voluntary, unpaid donations account for 100% of this life-giving supply.

South Africa is one of only 62 countries globally that is able to meet its blood needs entirely through unpaid, voluntary donation.

Donors come from all walks of life and SANBS’s total donor base numbers 462 000 donors. Some are more active than others and most are repeat-donors. In order to ensure they are able to continue donating for many years, donors are only permitted to donate once every 56 days.

Each unit of blood measures a little less than half a litre and it is processed to produce various blood products. Every unit of blood is estimated to benefit three individuals.

Blood is critically needed for a wide range of medical procedures. Besides its well-known use in emergency medical care, blood is essential during many forms of surgery, when mothers haemorrhage during childbirth, and in order to replenish the blood of people battling leukaemia, other cancers and other blood disorders.

SANBS operates in all provinces except the Western Cape and has 87 fixed donor clinics where donors can schedule donations at their convenience.

SANBS also has 100 mobile blood drives a day at institutions, workplaces, shopping malls and other places frequented by large numbers of people. Collectively they aim to collect 3 000 units of blood a day.

Despite South Africa’s very high rate of HIV, SANBS has an outstanding record of safety. Ten years ago, the service adopted a super-sensitive blood screening system known as nucleic acid testing. Since then not a single reported case of HIV through transfusion of SANBS-supplied blood has been recorded.

SANBS is striving to develop a blood donor base that matches the diverse nature of our population. This means growing the number of young donors and black donors. In recent years the number of black donors has been increasing steadily and currently four out of 10 blood donors are black.

Although SANBS has been able to meet its recent targets for the total amount of blood donated, our population is growing and, along with it, the demand for blood products. The service is using innovative ways to reduce wastage of blood by health institutions.

The long-term answer to meeting increasing demand lies in the hearts and veins of present and future donors. More frequent donation by occasional donors would make South Africa blood-secure for the medium-term. But new donors, who are committed to making at least four donations a year, are the key to the future.

Blood donation is a time-honoured South African tradition epitomised by 89-year-old Maurice Creswick, who began donating at the age of 16 years and has 407 donations to his name. He holds the Guinness World Record as the individual who has sustained donations over the longest period of time.

Life-blood for the nation: time to say ‘thank you’

Thank you for saving my life

Tashnika Rambali

“Every donor who has donated for me has given me a chance to fight and live a full, long life. To every donor who donates thank you because there are so many other people who need blood. . . . Your blood is valuable to them. You don’t just save that person, you save that entire family by giving them that blood.”

The South African National Blood Service (SANBS) celebrates the dedication of its blood donors this June and reminds the public that, as our population grows and access to healthcare improves, the demand for blood supplies to keep people alive in medical emergencies is constantly increasing.

At the start of Blood Donor Month, SANBS COO Ravi Reddy highlighted the challenge: “Our target for 2015 is 815 509 units of blood. We will only achieve this if many of our present donors are able to increase the number of donations they make and if members of the public come forward to replace donors who have given generously over the years but can no longer do so.”

Thank you for saving my life

Patience Thusi

“To the people out there who are donating blood I am truly grateful because they have contributed a lot to bringing my life back.”

South Africa is one of only 62 countries worldwide where the entire blood supply is donated free of charge by volunteers. On 14 June every year, the country joins with others across the globe to mark World Blood Donor Day and expands this event into a month-long campaign to highlight the critical importance of blood donation.

“No health system can do its job without a dependable supply of safe blood,” Mr Reddy said. “It is nothing short of a miracle that this vital aspect of healthcare is in the hands of volunteers and that they never fail us.

Thank you for saving my life

Matt Lathan

“I wouldn’t be standing here today if it wasn’t for a great medical team, the support of family and friends and the miracle life-saving act of receiving blood. If it wasn’t for the blood, I would definitely have died. Whoever you are, wherever you are, thank you.”

“Many of us do not appreciate the sheer range of situations in which blood plays a life-or-death role. These include everyday occurrences such as child birth and non-emergency surgery, as well as rare blood diseases, cancer treatment and major trauma. Any one of us could find that we owe our life to the generosity of a stranger who gives the gift of blood,” explained Mr Reddy.

Blood donors must be free of blood-borne pathogens, such as HIV and hepatitis B, to protect patients from infection. The sheer size of the HIV epidemic in South Africa raised doubts some years ago that SANBS would be able to maintain infection-free blood supplies and, at the same time, keep pace with the demand for blood.

Thank you for helping us save lives

Dr Monica Vaithilingum

“From the clinicians who require blood products I am intensely grateful because on a daily basis I am ordering urgent blood or urgent platelets. From my patients who are nameless and faceless to the donors I’d like to say thank you.”

Mr Reddy commented: “We are very proud to say that South Africa has met this challenge. We have diversified our blood donor base and we do not distinguish on the grounds of race, sexual orientation or place of residence. Through better communication with prospective donors and by embracing ultra-sensitive testing technology to detect HIV infection, we have had not a single reported case of transfusion-acquired HIV in the last nine years.”

About the South African National Blood Service (SANBS)

SANBS is a non-profit organisation which aims to provide all patients with sufficient, safe, quality blood products and related medical services in a sustainable manner. It is rated among the best in the world in the provision of blood and blood products, as well as research and training. SANBS operates across South Africa with the exclusion of the Western Cape, and supports its counterparts across the SADC region.

“One of my surgeons told me that he couldn’t believe that I was alive”

Life for Matt Lathan (26) took a sudden turn for the worse when a night at the movies ended with him lying in the casualty ward with excruciating abdominal pain.

Matt was also in the process of preparing for a fitness competition when he was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery to repair a small hernia. Complications from the surgery left Lathan with a ruptured colon and septicaemia set in.

In a domino effect the poison began to destroy his kidneys and liver. To prevent further damage, the prescribed treatment included several large blood transfusions to replace his toxic bloodstream.

During his ordeal he also suffered three heart attacks after which he spent two weeks in a coma. Matt’s family, friends and doctors, who witnessed his fight to stay alive, also watched in disbelief during his recovery.

“One of my surgeons told me on a few occasions that he couldn’t believe that I was alive,” remembers Matt.

When he woke up from the coma, Matt couldn’t walk, talk or eat without assistance. The fitness instructor and model had lost 55 kg and was faced with the mammoth task of teaching his 5 body basic functional skills. This was no easy task for an individual who had a good medical history.

Not only was he challenged to rebuild his body, through this life-changing experience he also reconstructed his mind-set.

“When something like that happens to you it definitely changes you. Knowing that I was resuscitated three times and received the gift of blood has given me a new purpose in life,” smiles Matt.

Armed with renewed hope and gratitude for his second chance at life – which was partly due to blood donors – he frequents the hospital wards to pray for and encourage the critically ill especially young patients.

“You don’t appreciate blood donations until someone you love needs blood”

Yusuf Degam has lived with a kidney condition for his entire life. At the age of 22 months, he underwent a kidney transplant. Decades later, when he experienced difficulty walking during a pilgrimage to Mecca, he knew this was a sign of new problems to come.

Yusuf’s difficulty walking indicated a gradual collapse of his bone marrow resulting in a decline in his blood cell and platelet count. This made regular blood transfusions necessary.

Although Yusuf’s kidney transplant was successful he is about to start dialysis in July because his kidney is failing.

“I’m grateful that my kidney lasted 26 years – my parents were told that we could expect it to start failing before I reached my teenage years,” recalls Yusuf.

He undergoes regular haemoglobin tests to determine his blood count. He last received blood in November last year.

When Yusuf was hospitalised for his first blood transfusion therapy in 2012 he was in need of four pints of blood and he recalls the unpleasant nature of the experience: “It was scary because I waited three days to get all the blood I needed.”

The store owner of hair products learned an invaluable lesson from his experience and was moved to start a blood drive from home in Malboro, Johannesburg.

“My mother always tells people that you don’t appreciate blood donations until someone you love needs blood,” says Yusuf.

Using Facebook and Twitter, he encourages new, and existing but irregular donors to come to his blood drives. Motivated by his immeasurable gratitude to the donors who have made his journey more bearable, Yusuf’s home hosts about 20 blood donors every second month.

“Blood donors are keeping me alive while I wait for my miracle”

When Patience Thusi, a school teacher in Pinetown, KwaZulu-Natal, was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia in 2010 she thought she would not live to see her two daughters reach adulthood.

Neither she nor her family and friends had ever heard of the illness and after browsing the internet Patience was convinced that her “life stopped”.

When Patience was first told that her bone marrow was not producing enough red blood cells, white blood cells or platelets her life changed. She was basically living between her home and the hospital to get blood transfusions every other day just to stay alive.

“At one point I would get home from a blood transfusion therapy session and bleed out through my ears, nose and mouth and menstruate heavily, causing me to go back to the hospital the very next day,” recalls Patience.

Today she needs blood transfusion sessions less frequently – every three months.

Explaining her illness to her young daughters was her biggest challenge because – like her students and their parents – they didn’t understand why she had to wear a mask over her mouth and nose.

Patience has to wear the mask to avoid getting airborne infections because her bone marrow doesn’t produce enough white blood cells which are critical to the functioning of the immune system.

Platelets function as blood coagulants and the inadequate amount is what causes her regular and profuse bleeding.

People who live with the rare disease rely on regular blood transfusions until they can get a bone marrow transplant. And like many others, Patience is waiting for her “miracle to happen”.

She is on a long waiting list for a bone marrow transplant for which her donor must be a 100% match. None of her close relatives qualify.

Despite the threat that aplastic anaemia has posed to her vitality Patience shares her story to encourage those who have similar conditions.

“I am always mindful of the gift of blood that circulates through my body … without the blood and platelets I would be gone by now,” says Thusi.

Because of her ordeal, many of her family and friends have become blood donors to save more lives.

She was once a blood donor and she remembers how difficult it is to convince people to get a needle stuck into their arm to give blood.

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Frequently Asked Questions