The Taiwan Blood Services Foundation is to start before the end of the year a trial run of blood donations from people aged 65 to 70 with an eye to petitioning the government to ease regulations on donor eligibility.
Given an aging population, Taiwan is faced with the dilemma of an ever-increasing demand for blood for transfusions, while its number of eligible young donors declines, the foundation said.
Raising the age limit for donors is an option to boost the nation’s blood supply, foundation chairman Hou Sheng-mao (侯勝茂) said in an article published in the Taiwan Medical Journal.
Photo: CNA
The US, Canada and other nations have been pushing the same measure, as elderly people have the lowest risk for blood-transmitted diseases, he wrote.
As of last year, Taiwan had a blood donation rate of 7.55 percent, which is higher than the average 4 to 5 percent in other countries, the foundation said.
Annual donations reach about 2.5 million bags of 250ml each, with the figure rising steadily, it said.
However, demand is also surging: From 2014 to last year, it rose 4 percent from 2.22 million bags of blood to 2.31 million bags, foundation statistics showed.
Donors were mainly older people, with those aged 41 to 65 contributing 799,000 bags, while donations by younger people, aged 17 to 30, decreased from 629,000 bags to 535,000 bags, the data showed.
Lagging supply leads to a rapid depletion of stored plasma during natural disasters, foundation consultant Lin Tung-tsan (林東燦) said.
Fit and healthy older people have been calling on the government to ease donor restrictions, Lin said.
According to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Standards for the Health of Blood Donors (捐血者健康標準), people over 65 years old who wish to donate blood must obtain a doctor’s permission and present proof of health.
The trial’s aim is to raise the age cap for donors to 70, with an accompanying clause that they must have donated blood within the past two years without experiencing any discomfort, the foundation said.
It marks the first time in 18 years that the country is discussing whether to relax regulations on donor age, Lin said.
The trial run would impose a maximum donation of 250ml per session, but would allow males to donate up to four times a year — up from three — while platelet donation would remain the same at one unit per session, not fewer than four weeks between sessions and no more than 12 times a year, Lin said.
After a trial run of one to two years, the foundation hopes to present the results and petition the FDA to raise the age limit for donors, it said.
FDA drug division official Huang Mei-chen (黃玫甄) said that the agency would not preclude such discussions.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS