Worldwide overview of existing haemovigilance systems

Haemovigilance is a "quality process" with the aim to improve quality and increase safety of blood transfusion, taking into account that haemovigilance covers and surveys all activities of the blood transfusion chain from donors to recipients. Haemovigilance is indispensable when it comes to safety and quality of blood transfusions. Within the European Union (EU), the European Blood Directive requires haemovigilance in each Member State: the intention has been to rely on the existing or developing national systems. There are significant differences in haemovigilance around the world, in terms of definition, organisational schemes, state of development and implementation. These differences are more pronounced outside the EU: in some countries, even basic traceability causes a problem while in others systems similar as the most developed ones in the EU are implemented. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.