I just picked up a nice story on blood transfusion, from the BBC kids’ programme Newsround, of all places (well, they did a good piece on mice in glue ear research last week).

Apparently a new animal donor register has just been set up. The story of how it came into being is on the register’s website:

‘The idea of creating a national blood donor database for pets came about after a nine year old Golden Retriever, Abi was diagnosed with auto-immune haemolytic anaemia. This is a disease in which the dog’s own immune system attacks and destroys the red cells in the blood which if untreated will eventually result in death.’

The dog’s owner, Diana, and vet were unable to locate a blood donor or oxyglobin (a blood substitute) supplier, but luckily, Diana, Abi’s owner, had three other Golden Retrievers which were tested and found to have the same blood group.

‘Within hours Abi received her first transfusion.

The treatment continued for eight days, three transfusions in all. Along with medication, the blood donation worked. Abi returned home two weeks later and as of July 2006 is doing very well!

There is little doubt that without the second and third transfusion Abi would not have recovered. Diana is so thankful that she had the use of her own dogs to save Abi’s life. Not everyone is that lucky. Everyday vets face the problem of finding suitable animal blood donors.’

The register means that animals can now donate blood to benefit other animals, in the same way that people give blood (except that animals need their owners to give informed consent). This is a neat story, because the whole basis of blood transfusion was developed using animals (mostly dogs) 80–90 years ago. You can read a brief history of blood transfusion on the RDS website. So now, through the register, dogs and other animals can benefit more from the technology they helped develop.