Photos: Menush Amit/COLlive
200 donors turned out for a blood and plasma drive in Crown Heights Wednesday, to donate plasma which can help save the lives of Coronavirus patients.
The plasma drive was organized by Ahavas Chesed and COVID Plasma Initiative, and took place at the Jewish Children’s Museum in Crown Heights.
Today’s blood drive was held in the memory of Rabbi Avraham Lider obm, the founder of the Ahavas Chesed organization in Crown Heights, who passed away four months ago. It was coordinated by his son Dovid Lider, who has been assisting with Ahavas Chesed’s operations.
Ahavas Chesed has been organizing blood drives in the neighborhood for many years, and especially during the recent pandemic, they have been instrumental in arranging the plasma drives in the community as well.
The Crown Heights plasma drive is one of a series of drives in which thousands of New York-based Orthodox Jews who have recovered from COVID-19 donate their plasma to help patients suffering from COVID 19. The plasma is transported to hospitals around the country.
With the recent uptick in COVID infections around the United States, the plasma blood drives are more urgent than ever before, organizers said.
I want to donate, but since I was born in the UK or since I lived there during the the 80’s and 90’s, they don’t allow me donate plasma or even regular blood.
Anyone know more on this topic?
Pls comment or msg me directly.
Thank You
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has imposed a ban on blood donations from anyone who has spent more than six months in Britain from 1980 to 1997 because of the possible risk of transmitting the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). The exclusion dates coincide with the time when exposure to CJD was considered to be at its peak in the United Kingdom. The American Red Cross estimates that the ban will cut US blood donations by 2.2%at a time when experts are already predicting severe nationwide blood shortages. Variant CJD has… Read more »