The National Blood Service is entreating the general public to donate more blood saying it has become a necessity in treating coronavirus victims with severe conditions.
According to the Public Relation Officer of the National Blood Service, Steve Addai Baah, there is an acute shortage of blood in the bank forcing the service to run a family replacement donation scheme which may not be sustainable to save lives.
Speaking to Citi News, Mr. Addai Baah stated that people cannot contract COVID-19 through blood donation, hence the call for more blood donors.
“We mostly rely on our voluntary donors or a number of blood collection points but with this second surge, I must say that we are debating a worse case situation because the President spoke yesterday and from all indications those restrictions are back, and so we cannot organise mass blood donations again. So, what we are relying on now is mostly the family replacement donation system whereby we ask people to bring relatives to come and donate for them. And so if we do not have people coming to donate voluntarily, it means that most people will surely not receive blood when there’s an emergency. And if you are not also able to bring people to donate for you, it means that we may be recording more deaths at our various hospitals. It also means that we cannot supply the quantity of the units of blood that we are supposed to supply to our hospitals.”
“What we are telling the general public is that, it is always better for blood to be waiting for the patient and not patients waiting for the blood during an emergency. The assurance is that you cannot contract COVID-19 through blood donation,” he added.
Ghana’s active COVID-19 case count has risen to 5,358 with the death toll now at 416.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo disclosed this on Sunday, January 31, 2021, during his 23rd national address on the management of COVID-19 in Ghana.
He also added that the daily infection rate now stands at 700.