NATO Blood Panel Members Urge Civilian Systems to Prepare for Transfusion Demand Surges

Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Blood Panel published a correspondence in The Lancet urging civilian blood services to assess their capacity to deliver life-saving transfusions during large-scale emergencies, such as armed conflict, radiological incidents and major disasters.

The authors emphasized that blood supply is a “strategic capability” affecting the resilience of health systems and that inadequate national blood logistics could have “severe consequences” in a potential NATO operation. Furthermore, they cautioned that supply challenges during a crisis would likely stem from insufficient personnel, equipment and processing capacity rather than lack of donors.

The correspondence calls for stronger civilian–military coordination, expanded surge planning for blood collection and processing and greater investment in technologies such as freeze-dried plasma, universal blood products and longer-shelf-life blood products. The authors also urged governments to prioritize expanding the donor pool, integrate blood logistics into national defense planning, and strengthen supply chains and cybersecurity protections for blood systems.