As she watched the pale yellow liquid drip into her mother’s vein, Ge Lan felt the weight of every drop. Her mother, recovering from stomach cancer surgery, relied on daily infusions of human albumin to restore her blood protein levels. At about $46 for a 10-gram bottle, the imported blood product was the most costly medicine in her mother’s treatment.
“I just hope (she) gets better soon,” the 44-year-old told CNN. “I’m worried about the money too, but I have no choice.”
Over two months, her mother used 72 bottles, costing the equivalent of seven months’ income for Ge, a local store worker in Henan, central China. Without help from her sister, she said she simply couldn’t afford the treatment – and without it, her mother’s condition could worsen.
China is the world’s largest consumer of human albumin, the most abundant protein in plasma, which is widely used in care for critical trauma such as burns, and restoring blood protein levels from chronic conditions like liver diseases. But it’s long suffered a domestic shortfall largely due to strict rules on plasma collection – a legacy of an HIV infection scandal in the 1990s – and it remains heavily reliant on plasma from its biggest geopolitical rival, the United States, for much of its human albumin supply.
The US supplies about 70% of global plasma and is one of the few countries that pays donors. Every year, millions of Americans offer up their arms to cover everyday costs – people like 25-year-old Sky Tucker.
“While I do know it could save a life, most of the time, I’m just worried about if I’m gonna get my next meal or if I can feed my cats,” said the community college student who sold plasma twice a week for seven years to help make ends meet. The frenzy followed Beijing’s decision in the mid-1980s to ban imports of almost all blood products – except human albumin – amid growing fears over the global HIV/AIDS crisis. China sought to build its own plasma-based industry – but the boom ended in catastrophe.
During the pandemic, plasma-based therapies like human albumin and intravenous immunoglobulin were widely used in treating critical Covid cases in China. A surge in demand then sparked a wave of panic buying, pushing up prices and leaving many patients with chronic conditions struggling to access supplies, according to a representative for a patient community impacted by inherited immune disorders.
Since that time, calls for self-sufficiency in blood products have grown louder among industry stakeholders, academics, and political advisers – and efforts to address the plasma shortfalls have accelerated.
After opening dozens of new licensed plasma collection centers in 2023, the country cleared its first rice-based albumin for market last July, as part of a broader push to reduce reliance on American plasma.
However, China still faces an annual shortfall of around 6,000 tons of plasma, according to a CNN calculation based on industry data and estimation of domestic demand cited by Chinese state media.
This concern remained largely under the public radar until a Covid-era crunch thrust it into the spotlight.
In the 1990s, local authorities in the impoverished Henan province pinned its economic ambitions on the plasma trade, rallying hundreds of thousands of cash-strapped farmers to sell their plasma, according to archived Chinese state media reports.
“Stretch your arm, show your veins; one stretch, one fist — 50 times a year,” Jaworski, a professor at Georgetown University who studies the ethics and economics of the plasma business, said, “It’s basically stuck at the level of the 1980s and 1990s.”
Industry insiders say rules that restrict plasma collection centers to certain geographical areas, and only allow locally registered residents to donate, has left the world’s second-largest population with just 1.5 million to 3 million active plasma donors, according to estimates from Yale University’s Chen.
China’s tightly constrained plasma industry has stood in contrast to a booming US collection system – propelled in part by financially strained Americans facing soaring prices and a weakening job market, which ultimately underpins China’s imports of human albumin.
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Source: CNN
