African American Blood Donors Needed

Blood Assurance needs more African American blood donors.

Blood Assurance Director of Community Relations And Outreach Clif Redish said the organization needs African American donors to help sickle cell anemia patients. Redish said sickle cell occurs predominantly in African Americans.

“Some of the statistics report that any African American or black donor there is a one in three probability that their blood will be matched with someone who has sickle cell,” Redish said.

Redish said sickle cell patients often have blood transfusions to treat the disease. Redish said middle Tennessee has an estimated 1,500 sickle cell patients and the supply is one emergency away from being completely out.

“One mass trauma will take so many units of blood that we have,” Redish said. “So we just don’t know. The need for it is constant. It’s every day.”

Redish said that Blood Assurance needs to collect roughly 540 units of blood every day to supply hospitals in middle Tennessee. Redish said African American blood donors have been few and far between.

“The statistics show that about one percent of African Americans donate blood,” Redish said. “We are trying to increase that number.”

Redish said they are also looking for Latino donors as a small percentage of Latinos suffer from sickle cell. Blood Assurance started an initiative in January to spread the word about the shortage of donors.