Australians with common iron condition urged to donate blood

Australians with a common genetic condition are being urged to consider donating, rather than discarding the blood they routinely give.

Transcript

00:00So actually it's about 1 in 160 Australians are affected, and it usually affects people

00:07who have Northern European heritage.

00:10So it's a genetic disorder, we're born with it, but it takes time for the body to absorb

00:14iron gradually over a lifetime.

00:16So it's usually the diseases expressed in people who are aged 40 and over.

00:21This is one of very few conditions that you can treat very effectively simply by giving

00:25blood.

00:26So the excess iron is taken out of the body by blood donation, or by giving blood.

00:31And so this is an amazing opportunity to use that blood for other people who require blood

00:35transfusions.

00:37Some people with haemochromatosis don't know that their blood can be used for donation

00:41purposes.

00:42So only about 60% of people who were surveyed recently by Lifeblood realised that they could

00:47use their blood for donation, and so awareness is a big part of this.

00:51In Australia we've been using haemochromatosis blood donations for blood transfusion for

00:56many years, but they've changed the guidelines now, these people can also donate plasma.

01:01So it's about awareness for people with this disease.

01:03It's a great opportunity because people with this disease are regular donors.

01:08They are 2.5% of the donating population in Australia.

01:11So if we can get them to donate at centres where the blood can be used for transfusion,

01:16and then also let them know in between their usual donations they can be donating plasma,

01:21that's really a change.

01:23We always have an undersupply, and certainly with rarer blood types we can get critical

01:29shortages in Australia.

01:31So we want to go from 60% of these patients to 100% donating their blood where we can

01:38use it and not discard it.