Climate Change Threatens World’s Supply of Blood, Study Warns
The study is the first globally to look at how climate change can affect each stage of the blood supply chain.
Photographer: Marcus Brandt/picture alliance/Getty Images
Climate change and increasingly extreme weather are taking a toll on global supplies of blood, endangering the lives of people with life-threatening injuries and conditions, a new study has found.
Extreme weather events and natural disasters such as bushfires and floods, fueled by rising global temperatures, are disrupting medical professionals in their efforts to collect, testing, transport and store blood, according to a study published in The Lancet Planetary Health this week. Such events make it harder for potential blood donors to travel to donation locations and slow down the transport of blood products which have a short shelf life and are highly sensitive to temperature variations.