Sanquin Home Sanquin Home Sanquin
Home ● Contact ● Sanquin ● News ● Jobs ● Sitemap ●
Core activities
The Blood Supply Act is intended to strengthen the quality, safety and availability of blood and blood products from unremunerated voluntary donors in the Netherlands. Responsibility for implementation and maintenance of this programme has been entrusted to Sanquin.

Thanks to the generosity of almost 465,000 voluntary donors, it has been possible to achieve an adequate, safe and high quality supply of blood fro the national requirements.

Sanquin's bloed banks examine donors, sample and test their blood, and separate qualified donor blood into its component parts. These include red blood cell concentrates, platelets and plasma. Most of the plasma, the liquid or non celullular component, is processed by the Plasma Products Division into medicinal products.

The Netherlands is self-sufficient for both normal as well as specific plasma used for the production of immunoglobulins. The demand for plasma is dependent upon the amount that is needed for the preparation of the plasma factor VIII product (for the treatment of haemophilia). More than 317,000 liters of plasma were collected in 2005.

Sanquin, together with the Finnish Red Cross, developed a new intravenously-administered liquid immunoglobulin product, Nanogam®. Sanquin introduced it within the Netherlands and Finland.

Haemovigilance
Sanquin collaborates with scientific associations and professional organisations in the TRIP ('Transfusion Reactions in Patients') Foundation, a nationwide system for the scientific repoting of blood safety in the Netherlands. In 2005 the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport gave approval for a surcharge on the price of blood products, with which the financing of TRIP was guaranteed.

Pharmacovigilance
The safety of the plasma products in clinical use are followed both actively in prospective studies and passively through acting upon reports received. The European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA) or the Medicines Evaluation Board (MEB) is informed per product in a Periodic safety Update Report (PSUR). The number of reports was scant and provided no reason to amend the information to psysicians and patients about the use of products.


Top


« back