The report pursuant to Section 21 German Transfusion Act is based on data referring to 4.53 and 4.66 million allogeneous whole blood donations and 1.35 and 1.89 million apheresis donations respectively for the years 2001 and 2002. Since 2000, the quantity of plasma for fractionation from apheresis has doubled to approx. 1 million litres in 2002. At the same time, the number of private apheresis facilities has also increased. The data on plasma for fractionation (both from whole blood and from apheresis) have shown a sharp increase for both report periods, mainly due to the rise in the quantity of plasma from apheresis. In spite of this, the quantity for plasma for fractionation available to the German market declined by 43% during the report period, due to increasing export figures. The data on the manufacture of blood components are reliable, since the notifications are almost complete. In 2001, 4.32 million transfusion units of erythrocyte concentrates, the most important product derived from whole blood donations, were manufactured, compared with 4.45 million in 2002, out of these, slightly less than 77 percent were manufactured in the blood donations services of the Re Cross. The consumption values reported were clearly below the figures for the manufacture, with 3.2 million transfusion units in 2001 and 3.5 million in 2002. However, some facilities of the health service did not meet the requirement to notify their figures. As far as the data on manufacture, imports and exports of plasma derivatives are concerned, further improvements are required because of the complexity of the matter and the various implications to be taken into account. However, a statement on the supply situation cannot be yet made anyway, due to the missing notifications on the consumption figures. © Springer Medizin Verlag 2005.
