Aim of the webinar:
This is a joint two-day webinar series between Thalassemia International Federation (TIF) and ISBT. During this series we will explore the present status and challenges in transfusion care in thalassemia patients across the world. The webinar aims to bring together the expert insights and the patient perspective to improve the overall care and promote best practices worldwide.
Level of education required:
2 - Novice (limited experience)
What knowledge is required?
Basic knowledge of transfusion care and management of transfusion-dependent thalassemia patients. Some of the basic resources freely available for review are the following:
The webinars
May 7
Time: 11:00 - 12:30 CEST
Moderators: Androulla Eleftheriou, Erica Wood
1. Pathophysiology of Thalassaemia – Khaled M. Musallam
2. Challenges in Blood Transfusion Therapy – Satyam Arora
3. Patient experiences – Loizos Pericleous (Cyprus), Anubha Taneja Mukherjee (India)
4. Panel discussion
May 8
Time: 11:00 - 12:30 CEST
Moderators: John Porter, Ratti Ram Sharma
1. Avoiding alloimmunisation and providing compatible blood – Nicole Thornton
2. Clinical complications of Transfusion Therapy in Thalassaemia - Farrukh ShahI
3. Panel discussion
The Speakers
Androulla Eleftheriou
Dr. Androulla Eleftheriou, born in Cyprus, holds a BSc, MSc, and PhD in Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Virology from London Universities. She has been awarded numerous scholarships by the Cyprus government, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Fulbright Commission. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA, USA.
From 1990 to August 2006, Dr. Eleftheriou served as Head of the Virus Reference Centre at the Cyprus Ministry of Health (Public Health). Since 2005, she has been the Director of the Cyprus WHO Thalassaemia/Haemoglobin Disorders/Rare Anaemias Collaborating Centre. She has worked closely with the Thalassaemia International Federation (TIF) since 1993, initially as a Scientific Coordinator for TIF’s educational programs on a voluntary basis. In 2006, she officially assumed the role of Executive Director of the Federation upon proposal from TIF’s Board of Directors. She continues to regularly act as a WHO consultant on issues related to her field of expertise.
Through her work with TIF, Dr. Eleftheriou collaborates and works closely with the World Health Organization, the European Commission, various Regional and International bodies, scientific and medical associations, academia, and the research community. Through her leadership at TIF, she has spearheaded many joint initiatives with official health-related organisations and agencies, national and regional health authorities and numerous disease and non-disease specific patient/parents organisations.
Dr. Eleftheriou has served through the years on the Board of the International Alliance of Patients’ Organizations (IAPO) and the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) and has been an Advisory Board member of the European School of Transfusion Medicine (ESTM). Additionally, she participated in the European Union Committee of Experts in Rare Diseases (EUCERD) and other projects. Since 2016, she has chaired the Higher Scientific Committee of the Sultan Bin Khalifa International Thalassemia Award (SITA), and in 2022, she was appointed President of the National Thalassaemia Committee under the Cyprus Ministry of Health.
Dr. Eleftheriou was instrumental in the creation of the Cyprus Alliance for Rare Disorders (CARD) and had a key role in its development for 11 years, including the post of the President. She also held the position of Vice-Chair of the European Hematology Association (EHA) Patient Advocacy Committee for two years. Her contributions to the field include authorship of numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, position papers, books, booklets, fact sheets, and e-learning programs over the past two decades.
Her work has been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the Panos Englezos Award (2003) for her contribution to the promotion of TIF’s mission and activities, the HemaSphere Award (2024) from EHA for the study “2021 Thalassaemia International Federation Guidelines for the Management of Transfusion-dependent Thalassaemia”, and multiple other accolades from various countries around the world. She also received a Certification in Capacity Building from Harvard University (2010).
Erica Wood
Erica Wood is a former ISBT Board member and a member of ISBT Working Parties for clinical transfusion, haemovigilance, and transfusion-transmitted infectious diseases. From 2010-2014 she was ISBT regional director for the Western Pacific region and ISBT Past President from 2022-2024. Erica is head of the Transfusion Research Unit in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. She is a consultant haematologist at Monash Health and holds an honorary appointment at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.
Erica is president of the International Haemovigilance Network (IHN), past-president of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Blood Transfusion (ANZSBT), and a member of the World Health Organization Expert Advisory Panel in Transfusion Medicine. Erica has served as Chief Examiner (Haematology) for the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia and chair of the Joint Specialist Advisory Committee in Haematology.
She is a member of the Victorian Blood Matters program advisory committee and the expert group of its Serious Transfusion Incident Reporting (STIR) haemovigilance program. In 2013, Erica was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to support her practice and research in patient blood management.
- Twitter:
- @erica_m_wood
Satyam Arora
ISBT Regional Director South East Asia (2024-2028), Additional Professor, Transfusion Medicine, Post Graduate Institute of Child Health (PGICH), Noida, India
Dr Satyam Arora, MBBS, MD (Transfusion Medicine), CABP (AABB) completed his MD in 2012 from the prestigious Post Graduate Institute Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, India. He established a pediatric transfusion-focused academic transfusion medicine department at a stand-alone children’s hospital (under the Government) in India and currently working there as an additional professor. He is presently working to establish a dedicated pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplant and cell therapy centre at the same institute.
He has done various international rotations (observerships) in hematopoietic stem cell transplants (Cleveland Clinic, USA) and Cell Therapy (Centre for Cell and Gene Therapy, Baylor Medical Center, USA). He is a member of the Technical Resource Group (TRG) on blood transfusion services (BTS) under the Directorate General Health Services under the Government of India and an expert member of India's National Donor Vigilance Program. He has been a member of ISBT since 2012 and was a founder member, past chairperson and South-East Asia representative with the Young Professional Council (YPC) of ISBT. Presently he is secretary of the Clinical Transfusion Working Party, co-chair of the Pediatric Transfusions subgroup of ISBT and member of the Hemovigilance Working Party. He is the recipient of many prestigious awards such as “Dr Harold Gunson” Fellowship (2012), the ISBT TTID Working Party Travel Award for Young Scientists (2014), “Young Scientist Award” by the Indian Society of Transfusion Medicine 2021and “Narendra S Bagaria Award” by the Indian Society of Blood Transfusion and Immunohematology (2022). His areas of interest are pediatric transfusions, hematopoietic stem cell transplants, apheresis science and hemovigilance.
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Ratti Ram Sharma
Ratti Ram Sharma (MD) is currently Head of the Department of Transfusion Medicine at Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research,Chandigarh, India. He has been working in the specialty for last 25 years and has keen interest in Apheresis, Stem Cell biology, blood component quality control and clinical transfusion practice. He has been instrumental in developing the curriculum for M.D. Transfusion Medicine programme in the Institute and established an active therapeutic apheresis and Bone Marrow processing unit in the department and received “Advancing apheresis technology runner-up award” from Terumo Caridian BCT, USA in 2014. Has been recipient of prestigious JR Jolly (2014) & H.D. Shourie (2008) awards of the Indian Society of Blood Transfusion and Immunohematology for his scientific research & innovative ideas in the field of Transfusion Medicine. Certificate of distinction from the University of Minnesota as a special research fellow in the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, USA for his active participation in academic & research activities. He is the Member of WHO Advisory group on Blood safety. He is the Member of National blood safety and hemovigilance programme implementation working groups. He has more than 100 publications both in National and International Journals.
Please be aware that if you attend the webinar, your data will be shared with TIF. If you do not want your data to be shared, please send us an email at [email protected].
