Blood donations down on Lanzarote

Lanzarote received 3,050 blood donations in 2024, a high figure but not as high as the 3,477 pints donated in 2023, reports Canarias7.

Nevertheless, with an average of 20 donations per thousand inhabitants, Lanzarote is far from being self-sufficient and still has to import blood. Self-sufficiency would require doubling the amount of donations.

Almost half of all donations occurred in Arrecife, and mobile units accounted for 2,433 of the donations received.  A donation, or bag, of blood is usually 450mls, roughly corresponding to a pint.

402 attempts to give blood were refused because the donor suffered from health problems such as high blood pressure or had been in territories which are on a blacklist.

One of those territories is, of course, the United Kingdom. Spain and several other countries still prohibit blood donations from anyone who spent more than 6 months in the UK between 1980 and 1998 due to the presence of BSE (mad cow disease) in the country at that time.