• People asked to donate for a relative or friend may, because of embarrassment or for reasons they wish to
keep confidential, not want to confess that they are ineligible.
• Directed donors are usually first-time donors, while more than two-thirds of routine donors have given in the
past, most on many occasions. With each donation there was a chance that the medical history or laboratory
tests would uncover some reason for ineligibility or that an investigation of an infection in a transfused patient
would identify the donor as a possible source.
The Need for More Donors The vast majority of transfusions use blood from volunteer donors in the community. The rest are autologous or directed. If blood isn't available when a patient needs it, that patient could die. Yet serious blood
shortages, which require rationing of the available supply, are frequent in many communities.
There are many reasons for the shortage of blood donors. Most people who do not give blood fail to do so because they just ignore the need or assume someone else will do it. A quarter of the population has the completely mistaken notion that it is dangerous to donate blood, that one might become infected with AIDS. And a very large number of people are not eligible to be blood donors anymore, based on the strict criteria used and tests performed.
