Spain modernises blood services and product controls:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Spain has established a national blood services network and haemovigilance system, with which to implement new technical standards, in line with EU legislation. As well as seeking to ensure higher quality standards, the Decree, which transposes EU directives 2002/98/CE and 2004/33/CE, sets out new requirements for the storage, transport, distribution and traceability of blood and blood products. One of the EU-wide objectives of harmonising such standards is to enable member states to more easily exchange blood and blood products between them. The regulations also affect, however, all blood products entering the EU. The shortage of blood products in Ireland is deemed to be a major barrier to bioscientific R&D (see this issue, p 7).