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. 2024 Aug;64(8):1492-1502.
doi: 10.1111/trf.17934. Epub 2024 Jun 28.

Blood donor return behavior in South Africa and the United States before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

Huzbah Jagirdar  1 , Nkasiobi H Nwobi  1 , Ronel Swanevelder  2 , Riana Cockeran  2 , Roberta Bruhn  3   4 , Zhanna Kaidarova  3 , Marjorie D Bravo  5 , Karin van den Berg  2   6 , Brian S Custer  3   4 , Ralph Vassallo  5 , Yichuan Ding  7 , Dimitra Panagiotoglou  1 , W Alton Russell  1
Affiliations

Blood donor return behavior in South Africa and the United States before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

Huzbah Jagirdar et al. Transfusion. 2024 Aug.

Abstract

Background: Studies preceding the COVID-19 pandemic found that slower time-to-return was associated with first-time, deferred, and mobile drive blood donors. How donor return dynamics changed during the COVID-19 pandemic is not well understood.

Methods: We analyzed visits by whole blood donors from 2017 to 2022 in South Africa (SA) and the United States (US) stratified by mobile and fixed environment, first-time and repeat donor status, and pre-COVID19 (before March 2020) and intra-COVID19. We used Kaplan-Meier curves to characterize time-to-return, cumulative incidence functions to analyze switching between donation environments, and Cox proportional hazards models to analyze factors influencing time-to-return.

Results: Overall time-to-return was shorter in SA. Pre-COVID19, the proportion of donors returning within a year of becoming eligible was lower for deferred donors in both countries regardless of donation environment and deferral type. Intra-COVID19, the gap between deferred and non-deferred donors widened in the US but narrowed in SA, where efforts to schedule return visits from deferred donors were intensified, particularly for non-hemoglobin-related deferrals. Intra-COVID19, the proportion of donors returning within a year in SA was higher for deferred first-time donors (>81%) than for successful first-time donors (80% at fixed sites; 69% at mobile drives).

Conclusions: The pandemic complicated efforts to recruit new donors and schedule returning visits after completed donations. Concerted efforts to improve time-to-return for deferred donors helped mitigate donation loss in SA during the public health emergency.

Keywords: COVID‐19 pandemic; blood donor management; donor deferral; donor recruitment and retention.

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