About the project

“FARMA” is a volunteer project creating kits for indirect transfusion of whole blood from donor to recipient at the pre-hospital and early hospital stages, when pre-collected cold-stored blood cannot be used.

The kits are assembled from components available on the market of Ukraine and neighboring European countries.

FARMA kits are supplied to military units and are also used to train military medics.

Project background, or how it all started

Realizing the need to obtain and use blood transfusion equipment given the large number of casualties of russian aggression, at the beginning of the full-scale invasion we took several existing versions of transfusion kits, mostly made in the USA, as models for the Ukrainian version.

Earlier we had tried to import ready-made kits, but supplies were limited, costs were high, and customs control and logistics were complicated. Significant delivery delays were unacceptable: TCCC training organizations needed kits for training, and medical stabilization points faced a shortage of blood transfusion supplies. The results of these attempts were not encouraging and did not come close to covering the real needs of the armed forces.

After evaluating the offers available outside Ukraine and identifying where the kits were most likely to be used, it became clear that a Ukrainian product had to be created as a stand-alone kit — to supply stabilization points likely to face supply problems — and that its delivery by drone had to be worked out for situations such as the blockade of Azovstal^*.

Last Stand at Azovstal: Inside the Siege That Shaped the Ukraine War
The New York Times, 24 July 2022

Why pre-hospital blood transfusion is so important?

60%+of preventable deaths on the battlefield are associated with critical bleeding, according to the Ministry of Health of Ukraine

Pre-hospital blood transfusion can significantly improve this statistic. Many changes are currently under way in Ukraine regarding the logistics of supplying the front line with pre-collected cold-stored blood from blood banks and training qualified medical personnel to perform the transfusion procedure.

We assemble kits for blood transfusion from donor to recipient. This does not solve every problem of adequate pre-hospital transfusion; it is an additional option to provide combat units with blood in case of mass casualties and other extremely adverse circumstances.

The ideal picture looks like this: our military have an established supply of pre-collected, tested, cold-stored O(I) Rh- blood, the qualification to use it, and quality equipment for its storage and transportation.

If, however, the military are in conditions where they have no access to blood — stocks are exhausted, logistics are disrupted, equipment (a blood storage refrigerator and a quality fluid warmer) is missing or out of order — they can use the kit and collect blood from an available healthy donor. This approach gives medics working close to the front line all the equipment they need to save as many lives as possible.

Blood product priority for transfusion

1Cold-stored low-titer O whole blood (CS-LTOWB)
2Pre-screened low-titer O fresh whole blood (LTOWB)This is where FARMA kits work
3Plasma, red blood cells (RBCs) and platelets in a 1:1:1 ratio
4Plasma and RBCs in a 1:1 ratio
5Plasma or RBCs alone

Packaging process

The kit is carefully assembled and packed by a community of volunteers with expertise in tactical medicine. We use a household vacuum sealer to pack it into a thick plastic bag that keeps the components from moving and getting damaged.

The donor’s and recipient’s parts of a kit are placed in different sections of a single package. The list of components of each kit is printed on colored paper and placed inside the package so that its contents can be read before opening the package. The expiration dates of the medicinal products included in the kit are indicated.

Packaging materials

We use thick plastic film, zip-lock bags 50 × 70 mm (for individual packing of gloves and disposable tourniquets), zip-lock bags 100 × 160 mm (for rapid tests), rubber bands 20 × 1.2 × 1.2 mm (for fixing disposable tourniquets), etc.

Our partners

Ukrainian Transplant Coordination Center

A memorandum of cooperation was signed between the FARMA project under the auspices of “Sidus Vitae” and the Ukrainian Transplant Coordination Center. We supply blood transfusion training kits and assist in conducting pre-hospital hemotransfusion training for state-certified units of the security and defense forces of Ukraine.

Thanks to the high-quality training of medical personnel and the use of high-quality medical equipment at the front line, we can personally thank our brave defenders for their tireless work that brings Ukraine closer to victory every day.

utcc.gov.ua

UA First Aid

A volunteer initiative of teachers and graduates of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy that actively responded to russia’s full-scale invasion and has been working for the needs of the front line since early March — good friends and partners of the “FARMA” project.

They provide premises and help with procurement, organization of the packaging process, administrative issues, distribution of finished kits and many other things.

You can support the project by donating to their monobank jar. This will help us assemble more kits and deliver them to the units as soon as possible.

Donate to the jar

uafirstaid.com

Blood Agents

Since 2015, the NGO “Blood Agents” has been promoting free, voluntary and regular blood donation in Ukraine. Its volunteers are on duty at blood centers every week, organize corporate blood drives, cover urgent needs, and run information campaigns and creative projects to recruit and retain donors. More than 15 thousand donors have donated blood with the Agents. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the Agents have been buying tactical medicine supplies for the Defense Forces.

Support Blood Agents bloodagents.com

Authors of the project

The core team of the project consists of volunteer tactical medicine trainers certified by NAEMT, as well as the UA First Aid team (most of whom, by the way, are regular blood donors).

Project Manager

Anastasia — pharmacist, volunteer, trainer. If you have questions not answered on the website or want to offer cooperation, write to her:
[email protected]
Think tank

The ideological and administrative basis of the project is the public organization “Sidus Vitae”.
Team

Besides training the military to use the kits, the instructor team is directly involved in assembling and improving them and in quality control of the final product.
Media and equipment

Kostyantyn Volianiuk — the person thanks to whom this website looks so nice.

FAQ

Who can get the kits?

The kits can be obtained by military personnel with proven skills in the use of blood transfusion at the pre-hospital stage after filling out a Google form, which you can find in the “How to Order” section. Also, a simplified training version of a kit can be obtained by certified tactical medicine training centers and, in fact, military units if they have personnel who can conduct the internal training of a sufficient quality.

Can I buy the kits?

At this moment our blood transfusion kits are not available for sale.

The priority of the FARMA volunteer project is to meet the needs of the medical services of military units and to train active military personnel in proper blood transfusion free of charge. The components of the kits are purchased and assembled on a voluntary basis, so it would be incorrect for us to use them commercially.

If you are able and willing to support the project financially and thank our volunteers for their tireless work, please make a donation to our monobank jar. This will help increase production and, therefore, the amount of support for our defenders.

The project runs entirely on a volunteer basis, and you can contribute to its development

Support the project