Hma-Qubec seeks plasma donors to reduce dependency on U.S.

Quebec spends more than $50 million a year buying plasma from the United States to produce vital drugs from the protein-rich blood component.

NowHma-Qubec is working on a plan to reduce the province's dependence.

The blood agencyis investing in new technology that can extract plasma in one simple step, and it's setting up plasma-only donor centres across the province.

Plasma is the largest component in our blood and is used for transfusions, as well as for an increasing number of vital drugs.

In Quebec, blood drives yield only about 15 per cent of the province's plasma needs. The rest has to be imported at great cost.

We have enough plasma to do transfusions, but we need more plasma that can be used to produce such drugs as immunoglobulin or albumin, said Hma-Qubec spokesperson Laurent Paul Mnard.

Reducing dependency

Mnard says the blood agency isworking to reduce what it must buy from the United States. He sayd if it doesn't, the dependencywill only grow, since plasma is a key component in more and more drugs.

Another problem is that it's more expensive to extract plasma here, because the main source of plasma is through blood drives.

When we're collecting whole blood, we have to process that blood into one of our two facilities, and it costs more, said Mnard.

He says this new technology eliminates many of the challenges.

At the moment there are three donation centres in the Montrealarea, one inTrois-Rivires, and another will open inSaguenayLac-Saint-Jeanin June.

The challengenow is to get Quebecers to visit and donate.