In most cases the donors are the relatives of the patients.

For rare blood groups it is usually paid donors, who give the blood.

According to Russian medical journal "Transfuziologia" # 5, 2001, the paid donors were source of 27.9% of whole blood taken in Russia in 2000. The paid donors are reluctant to disclose truth about their sickness (could be coupled with false-negative test result) or high risk behavior (the disease cannot be picked up before seroconversion).

In Georgia out of 4 970 donors tested 7.3% had anti-HCV (6.9% confirmed), HbsAg was positive in 4.1% (3.4% confirmed), seroprevalence of Syphilis was 2.3%. Three individuals had HIV ("Prevalence of hepatitis B, hepatitis C, syphilis and HIV in Georgian blood donors", European Journal of Epidemiology 17 (7), 2001 p.693-695), the abstract is available at Pubmed.