Croatia

The blood transfusion service in Croatia (population of nearly 3.9 million) consists of 7 blood establishments (BEs) and 27 hospital blood banks (HBB). Croatian Institute of Transfusion Medicine (CITM) is the only independent BE and Reference center for transfusion medicine of the Ministry of Health, while remaining 6 BEs are part of hospitals.
In 2021, a total of 190,935 donations were collected in Croatia. More than 50% of whole blood donations and about 65% of apheresis donations in Croatia are collected by CITM. There were 94,168 registered blood donors in 2021.
Immunohematology testing is performed in all 7 BEs, while infectious disease testing (serology) is performed in 5 of them (remaining two centers send samples to CITM – Zagreb). NAT (ID) testing is centralized in Zagreb (CITM) for the whole country.
There is national IT system (e-Delphyn) in place, connecting all transfusion centers in country.

Membership in EBA is institutional (CITM as a national institute).