Climate change threatens world’s supply of blood, study warns

Climate change and increasingly extreme weather are taking a toll on global supplies of blood, endangering the lives of people with life-threatening injuries and conditions, a new study has found. 

Extreme weather events and natural disasters such as bush fires and floods, fuelled by rising global temperatures, are disrupting medical professionals in their efforts to collect, testing, transport and store blood, according to a study published in The Lancet Planetary Health this week.

Such events make it harder for potential blood donors to travel to donation locations and slow down the transport of blood products, which have a short shelf life and are highly sensitive to temperature variations. 

Tropical cyclone Alfred illustrates the impact of these types of weather events after it caused

severe damage and widespread flooding

across Queensland and New South Wales in Australia in March.

More than 3,500 blood donation appointments were cancelled due to the event, resulting in a steep drop in the nation’s blood stocks, according to the research team at Australian Red Cross Lifeblood and the University of the Sunshine Coast.

“For the first time here in Australia, we saw a weather event have an unprecedented impact on donations,” said Ms Elvina Viennet, Lifeblood researcher and co-author of the study. “This research is important because blood and blood product supplies are critical for medical treatments – plus they save lives in emergency situations.”

The study is the first globally to look at how climate change can affect each stage of the blood supply chain, based on a review of international studies. 

Climate change also means many diseases that are transmitted through blood, such as dengue fever, west nile virus and malaria, will spread to more regions as the insects that spread them find new regions with suitable temperatures for living.

The spread of diseases could also prevent people from donating, posing a new challenge to the blood-banking system with potential increase in the transmission of such diseases via blood transfusions. 

Blood-banking systems must “ensure that blood systems remain adaptable to evolving risks” and “will require ongoing evaluation of regional disease burdens, available resources, and emerging technologies” as climate change is creating new and evolving threats from insect-borne and zoonotic diseases, the study said. 

Extreme weather, including high and cold temperatures and other climate fluctuations, can also have indirect influence on the blood chain as it can increase people’s demand for blood transfusions, especially people with conditions such as pregnancy complications, cardiovascular disease, sickle cell disease, kidney disease, and trauma-related injuries. BLOOMBERG