COVID-19 and Transfusion

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which is caused by SARS-COV-2 has affected most parts of the world in a short period. Transfusion services are also affected during the emergence of a pandemic of this magnitude. Due to the widespread outbreak of SARS-COV-2, new guidelines have been adopted in blood transfusion centers. Considering the impact of the SARS-COV-2 pandemic on blood transfusion services, blood donation, blood safety, and the use of blood products as a treatment for COVID-19 are addressed in this article.

In this review, keywords were searched in Science Direct, PubMed, and Scopus databases, and the sites of Nature Science, Elsevier, Cell, BMJ, Blood, Transfusion, and Lancet journals, and finally 99 articles were used.

In this article, in addition to a brief review of patient blood management, blood safety, and donor safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of blood products as a treatment is considered.

Hospitals and blood centers have created new policies and guidelines to protect donors and blood supplies including adding new questions to the donor questionnaire and adopting new deferrals for COVID-19 infection and vaccination. Although hyperimmune plasma (convalescent plasma) is proposed as a possible treatment, there are some contradictions in this field.