A good friend who works for the American Red Cross once told Pastor Troy Brand, “When blood is needed, only blood will do.”
Those words resonated with Brand, but he has since added his own twist on the saying: “When Black blood is needed, only Black blood will do,” because the vast majority of patients with the blood disorder known as sickle cell disease are of African descent.
Sickle cell disease causes red blood cells to become hard and “sickle shaped,” making it harder for blood to flow. Frequent blood transfusions are one of the most important treatments to manage the range of complications that can come with the disease.
For those patients, it’s crucial the blood they receive has matching antigens, and often, the most compatible blood comes from donors of the same race or similar ethnicity.