China’s New HIV Blood Products Policy May Save Lives

(New York, September 25, 2007)—China’s new plans to require central screening of all blood products for the AIDS virus is an important step toward national blood safety, and may save lives, Asia Catalyst said today.

A report released on September 6 by Asia Catalyst said that China’s blood supply is “dangerously unsafe” and recommended that the Chinese government centralize regulation of blood donations. On September 11, the State Food and Drug Administration announced that beginning January 1, 2008, every batch of blood products in the country will be tested in Beijing. Only blood products that pass tests for HIV and other blood-borne pathogens will be allowed on the national market.

“This is an important step toward centralizing control of the blood supply, which is a time-tested way of ensuring blood safety,” said Sara (Meg) Davis, Ph.D., founder and director of Asia Catalyst. “The Food and Drug Administration should continue to work on creating a more robust system that can track every blood donation in the country.”

On September 12, a group of thirty-two Chinese hemophilia organizations published an open letter to the Chinese president stating that there is a national shortage of Factor VIII, a blood product hemophiliacs need for their survival. In June, the SFDA found fake plasma in use in eighteen hospitals in northeast China.

According to the Asia Catalyst report, AIDS Blood Scandals: What China can learn from the world’s mistakes, China’s rapidly-growing demand for and short supply of blood and blood products is creating a booming black market for illegally sold, untested blood.

“Many other countries have had HIV outbreaks in their blood supplies,” Davis said. “They have found that a central, computerized tracking and testing system is a way to ensure that it never happens again. The international community should help China to create such a system.”

China should also establish a fund to compensate all victims infected with HIV through blood transfusions, she said.

Asia Catalyst is a New York-based nonprofit that partners with civil society advocates in Asia to inspire, create and launch innovative, self-sustaining programs and organizations that advance human rights, social justice, and environmental protection. AIDS Blood Scandals: What China Can Learn from the World’s Mistakes is available for free download in English and Chinese at www.asiacatalyst.org.