A woman diagnosed with sickle cell anemia could not find compatible blood in the local network, which required a joint operation to search and transport between the states of São Paulo and Santa Catarina.
Sickle cell anemia is a hereditary genetic disease in which red blood cells change shape, making it difficult for blood circulation and oxygen saturation of the body. Rare blood supplies were delivered from the interior regions of São Paulo to help the patient in Santa Catarina.
To meet this urgent need, the Santa Catarina Blood Center (Hemosc) contacted the Rare Blood Donor Bank. The search led to the discovery of two donors with a suitable profile in the interior region of São Paulo: one donor in Araras and another in Ribeirão Preto.
The blood collection took place on Thursday (the 22nd). The unit collected in Araras was stored until it was combined with the unit in Ribeirão Preto. After that, both units were transported by car to Viracopos International Airport in Campinas (São Paulo), from where they flew at 6:00 PM on Friday to the capital of Santa Catarina.
The team at the Ribeirão Preto Blood Center sent the rare blood supplies to the patient with sickle cell anemia in Florianópolis (Santa Catarina). Ana Paula Zanelli, manager of the immunohematology laboratory at the Ribeirão Preto Blood Center, explained that most procedures only require standard compatibility testing, but specific cases require more complex analysis.
She noted: 'For most patients, we perform ABO and Rh typing, which is sufficient for finding compatible blood. However, in some cases, we need to conduct a more thorough compatibility check and test other blood groups.' According to her, any case is considered rare if its frequency is less than one in 1,000 people in the population. In this case, 'for these two units that we sent today to Santa Catarina, the frequency is one in 100,000 tested people to find such a unit. In this case, it is much rarer,' added Ana Paula.