People in Essex are donating blood plasma for medicines for the first time in more than 20 years. 

More than 375 residents have donated in the two weeks since collection started, and nearly 200 people are booked in to donate this week. 

Donations are being collected at Victoria House, in Duke Street, Chelmsford, which is one of 14 plasma centres in England and the only in Essex. 

This plasma will be used to make antibody-based medicines – called immunoglobulins - for people with rare immune diseases.

Thousands of patients rely on immunoglobulin medicines for short-term or lifelong diseases and genetic disorders.

Around 1,600 of these patients are on the East of England patient panels.

With rising demand across the world for these medicines there is a global supply shortage. 

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The donations being made in Essex and across the country will bolster the supply chain and improve the self-sufficiency of the UK in producing its own treatments.

Donation centres have been set up at former convalescent plasma donor centres, originally created for coronavirus research.

Robert Garmey, Chelmsford Plasma Donor Centre Manager, said, “Like blood donation, plasma donation will be altruistic, for the benefit of the NHS and we’re here ready to collect it.

"We’re asking people, if contacted by us, please donate plasma for medicines – you will save and transform lives.”

The antibody medicines are used to treat people with weak immune systems and a variety of other rare disorders.

Illnesses include:

  • Immune disorders such as Common Variable Immune Deficiency
  • Neurological disorders such as Guillain–Barre syndrome and myasthenia gravis
  • Haematological disorders such as cytopenia - a low mature red blood cell count, which can occur following radiotherapy and chemotherapy for cancer treatment
  • Dermatological disorders such as Kawasaki syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis

When people donate, the plasma is filtered out of circulating blood by an apheresis machine and the red blood cells are returned to the donor.

Several thousand donors will initially be recruited from the existing NHSBT blood donor base, rather than the general public.

Open recruitment will be introduced in the future.