Hyderabad: City stares at blood shortage as young donors set to get vaccinated

Hyderabad: As if the Covid pandemic worry wasn't enough, shortage of blood has become a major cause for concern for hospitals and patients in life and death situation. Blood requirement is only expected to go up in the coming months while there is a drastic fall in the number of blood donors.

Hyderabad city needs around 2.5 lakh units of blood per year, but the requirement may double due to the fact that more and more critical Covid patients are depending on plasma therapy for quick recovery. In addition, blood transfusion is needed for patients of thalassemia, anemia and road accident victims. Blood donation organizations and blood banks are requesting people to donate blood before getting vaccinated as they cannot donate blood for at least three months after the first and second jab.

Explaining the current grim scenario, P. Srujan from the Hyderabad Blood Donor Society said, "On an average, we are receiving at least 50 calls every day for blood plasma and the blood requirement is even higher. We can only meet half the demand."

"No doubt, donors are coming forward to save the society. But the difficulty is with the platelets. It is becoming very hard to get platelet donors as they have to wait for three hours until the process is finished. In these Covid times, donors are a little reluctant to stay in hospital for a longer time for fear of getting infected with the virus," he added.

Speaking about the requirement of blood in the next coming months, A Naveen Chary, who is associated with several blood banks in the city, said, "We may need blood twice as much as in normal times. On an average, the requirement of blood per year is around 2.5 lakh units, and this year we might need around 5 lakh units. Now, we are able to balance the situation by conducting blood donation camps here and there in the city. But, the blood supply might fall gradually as the registration for vaccination for those 18 years and above has begun."

"Our 90% of blood donation comes from youth and college students. Once all of them get vaccinated, Hyderabad will find itself in a tricky situation as there would be no blood donation from this group for next three months. Moreover, the blood donation percentage in the city is also coming down gradually.

On an average, an NGO collects 1,500 units every month, but last year we had fallen short of 30% of donors and, consequently, we were able to collect only 1,200 units per month. The coming three months are going to be worse as collecting even 1000 units of blood could be difficult. Hence, we request people to donate blood a week before getting vaccinated," he added.