Blood is essential to the lives of all animals, including human beings. Blood is the transportation system of the body. It supplies nutrients to cells, such as sugar, oxygen and hormones and carries waste away from those cells. It also defends bodies from infection and foreign harmful materials. Blood is the mixture of of cells and liquids and red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma are the major components and each has their own functions.
Massive blood loss is life threatening and blood transfusion is the only way to help. Blood transfusion is a process of transfusing blood or blood-based products from one person into the circulatory systems. During the process of blood transfusion, a small needle is inserted to an intravenous line into one of the blood vessels and the patient can then receive healthy blood which can save their life. This process usually takes one to four hours, depending on the amount of blood needed. Blood transfusion is very common all over the world, for example, Hong Kong, just like the other developed countries, needs about 3% of population to donate blood. Blood transfusion has a long history. In 1818, Dr James Blundell is the first obstetrician who successfully performed the transfusion of human blood to a patient for a haemorrhage. In 1901, an Austrian biologist and physician, Karl
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Other than some minor side effects, such as itching, skin rash, fever or feeling cold, there are also some serious sickness happened due to blood transfusion. There are several transfusion-transmitted diseases, such as AIDS (1 in 4 millions), Hepatitis C (1 in 3 millions), Hepatitis B (1 in 1.2 millions) etc. These diseases are fatal to patients. Moreover, in very rare cases, the patient’s blood destroys the donor red blood cells which called hemolysis. The chance of an acute hemolysis is 1 in 25000. This can cause severe bleeding and kidney