Strangely the only place in Switzerland I have seen a coordinated effort was near you in Ticino!

The last two times I've been to Bellinzona at the weekend, there has been a donation bus near the foot of the castle. Hopefully you'll catch it there some time!

"Strange, so even a business trip for a couple of days in UK between 1980-1996 will discard you. So I guess I won't give my blood then to the genevese.... " MrVertigo

I suppose it depends on what they mean by 'sejour'.
I'm pretty certain that when they first introduced this ruling it was a question of the total amount of time spent (and I seem to remember it being six months) because this ruled out my sons becoming donors by a matter of a month or so due to the total amount of time they'd spent visiting the grandparents over the years.

In Zürich, there is the Blutspendedienst, a sizeable institution near Hirschengraben/Seilergraben, which is not doing anything else than collecting blood. And there are numerous blood collection actions throughout the year in various places going on.

PS: I was a blood donator for some 20 years, but after cancer surgery had to quit. Very strange is that I was really sad about this particular aspect. I was in the nice situation to have survived fairly splendidly and so have time to consider such things !

And let's not forget the armed forces. Blood donation programs are launched regularily, with the fullest support of all levels of command

I lived in england from 1985 till 1988 as a child of 3 - 6 years old. that was it. not been back since.

I have O- blood which is the most desired blood type but unfortunately cant donate.

Hope they find a way to detect CJD soon. Anyone know any ongoing research?

This is actually only true in theory. If they can avoid it, they will never give 0 blood to an A, B or AB type but only give blood from the same blood type. This is because there is not only a major reaction (Antibodies of recepient rejecting blood) but also a minor reaction (antibodies in blood rejecting recepient). Which means in practice that while some blood type are seen in 60% of the people and some in 5% - they require all of them equally as all groups of blood types are equally likely to have cancer or an accident.

i work for a vampire company...so I understand. hey look, I'm up at 5 am!

But in a lot of emergency cases they arent able to ask the patient what their blood type is, or the patient doesnt know and there is no time to find out.

Donated blood is used in emergencies more than anything else....

Hence the use of O-

I'm sorry but this is mostly not true. This is a graphic from the Australian Red Cross about what happens with their blood donations. As you can see, only 2% goes to trauma patients. The majority is used in cancer treatments and procedures in hospital, for which the blood is split up into its seperate parts (plasma, erythrocytes, leucocytes, thrombocytes) so that "the same" blood can be used for different procedures in different patients. This is no different in Switzerland, I just couldn't find a nice graphic (blood-drop shaped and all...)

True that. I was more or less referring directly to O- bllod. In emergency cases (even if only 2% of the total), O- is almost always give to be safe.

and since we're using the aussie stats:
http://www.donateblood.com.au/all-ab...od/blood-types

Only 9% of the population have O- yet it is the blood type that can be used with all other blood types. Hence why (and even the website says so) O- is in constant demand.

I snub my nose at blood drives.

It's actually true in practice too. Since O neg blood has no A, B or rhesus antigens on the cells then there is nothing for the recipient's body to produce antibodies to. O neg blood is in high demand because it can be given to any recipient but only a small percentage of donors are O neg. That's not to say that there haven't been cases of reactions to O neg blood but they are extremely rare. Since donors and donations are sceened too the risk of antibodies in the donor blood rejecting the recipient are also very very unlikely.


Of course where possible they will match blood types but it is not always possible.

I've always given blood when in the UK, although one nurse told me it was not much use due to my very rare blood group which cannot be given to other groups!

As a patient who has needed a lot of blood on several occasions, a mother and grand-mother I have to say I am very glad that very careful screening now takes place after disasters all over the world with many diseases being passed on. No need to be uppity about it - safety first (so yes, I am Swiss but can't give blood any longer).

came across this today. Perhaps the breakthrough has been found now:

http://www.channel4.com/news/blood-t...ad-cow-disease

The AB+ variant apparently is highly appreciated.

Here is the link to the VD blood questionnaire. It is of course in French. It goes through the full list of things that will (or may) disqualify you from giving blood at that time or at anytime.

Link: http://www.mavietonsang.ch/vaud/inde...d=49&Itemid=73

Click on the left tab below this "Questionnaire médical"

You will then load the questionnaire as a PDF. Quite a long and detailed list of questions.

The UK angle is a total of 6 months stay.

Which reminds me, as O-, I should really roll up the sleeve.

Not in the UK where the incidence of AB+ is so rare.

AB+ is very rare and can only be given to AB+ recipients so it's no usually necessary to have large amounts of this type.

AB+ is classed as the universal recipient blood group as since there are A,B and rhesus antigens on the recipiant cells already it's not so important what group the donor blood is as there will alredy be antibodies to all the componants in the recipiant's blood.

It's actually quite a nice group to be as there should never be a shortage of blood should you need a transfusion.

O- is the most appreciated because as I said in my earlier post it it calssed as the universal donor type as it can be given to anybody.

> does this mean that I in case of an accident in the UK might be in a bad spot ?
> do you in case of a medical problem need blood of EXACTLY the same bloood group ?

Wikipedia has some good info on the % of blood types by major country and the transfusion compatibility chart (further down the page).

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type

So for example O- can give to everyone (in a pinch) but can only take from O-.

Thanks for this link. Just made a print. It means that they can (did) give me blood of four different kinds, but that blood donated by me can only be given to AB+ people. As AB+ is relatively common (more than 5%) in Eastern Europe, Turkey and the Arab countries, it is obvious that when there was a heavy influx of people from such countries into Switzerland, they suddenly had an urgent need, but when I had to give up on donating in 1988/89 took it rather calmly and relaxed.