Constancy is a key to progress
What is the significance of donating blood or blood stem cells? From the standpoint of our organisation, the medical relevance of these acts is paramount. This is because, in articulating our vision, we have set ourselves an ambitious goal – the right donation at the right time for every patient. However, to reduce the question to its medical significance alone does not do it justice: giving a part of your own body, which will then live on in the body of someone else, is, first and foremost, an act of humanity. And it is thanks to donors’ acts of solidarity and altruism that we can once again look back on a successful year.
We reached some new highs in the blood stem cell division in 2024. Counting all types of donations together, the total number of products we sent out topped the 100 mark for the first time. Initial assessments for donation and collection procedures also reached record numbers. We are delighted that we can provide the right products to increasing numbers of patients from the global network who need them. This growing interest from abroad can be traced essentially to three factors:
- Our registry of donors includes people with rare HLA markers.
- We have young donors with high-quality tissue typing.
- The Swiss registry is well regarded due to our reliability, the efficiency of our processes and the fact that we are competitive in terms of pricing.
In the area of blood donation, we laid the foundation for a digital donor service last year. The app can be downloaded from the two most popular app stores. The service will be connected to multiple regional blood transfusion services and go live this year. We feel confident that the digitalisation of contacts between donors and blood transfusion services will improve the blood donation system.
The proposal to amend blood donation criteria that we submitted to Swissmedic in October 2024 will probably also have a major impact on blood donation. The proposed change would make persons who spent time in the United Kingdom between 1 January 1980 and 31 December 1996 eligible to donate again.
The rising numbers of infections with the West Nile virus, the dengue virus and other mosquito-borne viruses pose a challenge for the blood supply. It is essential to have capacities and resources available to guarantee that none of these diseases can be transmitted through a blood transfusion. New testing capabilities had to be realised to achieve this. This was one of the reasons why we submitted a request to the Federal Office of Public Health to increase the price of red cell (RBC) concentrates. Our request received partial approval, and the price increase came into effect on 1 January 2025.
The progressive implementation of the software Omnia, which will enable greater integration of the processes involved in blood stem cell donation, will continue in 2025. It has been shown that larger IT projects tend to take longer than planned. We are somewhat behind schedule, but still on track to meet our objectives.
We were able to renew our ISO certification without difficulty, a fact which testifies to the high quality of our work overall.
This past year brought new records and stability at the same time. This constancy shows that we stand on a solid foundation. It gives us the strength to tackle upcoming challenges and achieve progress. Because constancy is a key to progress.
Isabelle Chassot
President of the Board of Directors
Swiss Transfusion SRC
Dr. Bernhard Wegmüller
CEO and Chairman of the Management Board
Swiss Transfusion SRC
