ELDON BIOLOGICALS A/S is a Danish manufacturer of dry format cards for blood grouping. Based on an invention by the Danish physician Knud Eldon, EldonCards have been manufactured and used for more than 40 years.

Over time millions of cards have been utilised to establish individuals’ blood group within the AB0-Rhesus (D) system and to ensure compatibility of patient/donor blood. Today, EldonCards are based on the use of special formulations of selected monoclonal antibodies.

The EldonCard is a product of the highest quality. It is ISO certified, CE marked in the EU, cleared by the US FDA, and registered with the relevant authorities in a range of other countries. The EldonCard is made of a special type of plastic upon which dried antibody formulations are placed. The EldonCard is a reliable, durable, and flexible point-of-care blood typing system.

The EldonCard is extremely safe to use. It is very accurate and using the card eliminates many of the possible human errors associated with the traditional laboratory-based methodologies, where blood type testing is done with liquid reagents on a glass plate. It also leaves a permanent record – the EldonCard – which can either be included in a patient journal or it can be given to the patient for safekeeping.

The blood is drawn by using a single-use safety lancet, which prevents accidental piercing by anyone picking up the lancet after it has been used for blood typing.

The EldonCard is extremely accurate. It has been tested against the standard blood typing procedure using directly agglutinating antibodies. Tests have been performed at several laboratories in different countries and the result is that there is a 99.9 percent concordance between the results achieved by the EldonCard and a test using a well-executed standard blood typing procedure.

The special qualities of the EldonCards are the following:

Shelf-life 24 months at 5-37 °C

Portable and compact

Blood grouping on location

Result after just 2 minutes

Easy to learn, easy to use

No need for refrigeration and daily controls

Whole blood can be used down to 5 μl.

No need for separation of red cells and blood plasma

EldonCards are used by hospitals, blood banks, and blood centers, where it can be used for general blood typing and for Bed Side Testing. Given the flexibility, durability and accuracy of the EldonCard, it can be used outside hospitals and clinics. It can be used at the practitioner’s clinic, in humanitarian settings, on remote locations, on the battle field, in the class room, in the private home, or in any emergency situation calling for a speedy and reliable test.

Sidebar

EldonCards are used professionally all over the world. The Blood Type Test Kit is portable, compact and easy to use in even the most difficult surroundings, which make blood type testing flexible in any given situation. EldonCards can be used beneficially in the following segments:

Medical Market, Hospitals, Blood Banks, Blood Centers, and clinics

Military, Police and Civil Service

Rescue and Emergency – NGOs and governmental institutions

Rhesus testing of pregnant women

Donor recruitment

Educational Market, schools, institutions and universities

Health Market including home testing

Find more information about the different segments below.

EldonCards for the Medical Market

EldonCards are used in various fields in the Medical Market amongst others:

It is estimated that 50,000 fetuses and 114,000 newborns worldwide die annually from Rhesus (Rh) disease, a condition that in more developed countries is routinely diagnosed, treated, and prevented.

Rhesus disease is a condition where antibodies in a pregnant woman’s blood destroy her baby’s blood cells. It’s also known as haemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn (HDFN). While Rhesus disease doesn’t harm the mother, it can cause the baby to become anemic and develop newborn jaundice. In some cases, jaundice may develop into kernicterus, which can cause permanent brain damage. Rhesus disease may also cause hydrops fetalis which can lead to heart failure or severe buildup of fluid in organs and tissues. Rhesus disease has a mortality rate of up to 24% in newborns. Women who are Rh negative and are pregnant with a baby whose father is Rh positive are at risk for this condition.

Rhesus disease can easily be prevented by the routine screening of pregnant women. If a mother is known to be at risk for Rh disease, a health care provider can use a prescription medication called anti-D (Rh) immunoglobulin. This injection is typically given twice during the pregnancy to prevent the mother’s immune system from attacking the child’s blood cells. One injection is typically at the 28-week mark of pregnancy and the other is shortly after the child’s birth. It may be given earlier in pregnancy or more than twice if there are any extra risk factors. This medication is very well tolerated.

The EldonCard is the most trusted and accurate tool for point-of-care (near-patient-testing) of blood typing of the ABO-, and Rhesus systems. Unlike other devises the results are immediate (within two minutes) and once the test is complete, the results can be preserved in medical records or with the individual in a convenient credit card format. The durability of the EldonCard makes it the method of choice in development and humanitarian contexts.

The durability of the EldonCard makes it the method of choice in development and humanitarian contexts, such as areas with complex supply chains, disaster areas or areas affected by armed conflict, allowing for swift blood typing and thus for saving lives.

By making this simple, cheap, POC test available millions of women and men can be screened for Rhesus status and receive appropriate immunoprophylaxis, which will indeed have a profound “measurable impact” by saving maybe more than 150,000 lives annually.

Eldon has developed a special Rhesus card to use in birth centres, birth clinics and abortion clinics.

Partners for healthy pregnancies:

Rhesus testing in Pakistan

Eldon Biologicals is together with Sick Kids Hospital and Aga Khan Hospital in Pakistan testing blood typing and screening og pregnant women in remote rural settings. Using an APP to collect local data.

Thanks to Sick Kids Hospital Toronto Lisa Pell, PhD, MPH Senior Research Assosiate Program Director, Global Child Health Fellowship and Dr Samreen Rajan Research Associate Paediatrics and Child Health Aga Khan University and Hospital in Pakistan and Shaun Morris, MD, MPH, FRCPC, FAAP, Clinician-Scientist, Division of Infectious Diseases, Hospital for Sick Children, Associate Professor Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto

She was ‘the woman who loses all the babies.’ Then she learned what might have saved them

In developing countries, there are many like her, whose children have died of Rh disease. Yet the illness, which decades ago was defeated in the West, has a simple cure. Now, a Toronto doctor is helping to lead an international effort to save hundreds of thousands of babies.

By screening with the EldonCard we will be able to determine the bloodtype and prevent the disease with the Rhogam injection after birth. Eldon Biologicals is together with the organisation WIRhE (Columbia University) fighting this problem.

By journalist Jennifer Yang– Toronto StarIdentity and Inequality Reporter

About Eldon

EldonCards for the Medical Market