‘Voluntary blood donations grew by nine per cent in last 17 years’

A significant increase in voluntary blood donation has been witnessed in Pakistan during the last 17 years and now 10 per cent of all the blood donations are made on a voluntary basis, up from 1 per cent in 2005, senior haematologists said on Friday.

“If a person donates blood without any obligation, it is called voluntary donation and a person can donate blood at least three times a year. The voluntary donation in Pakistan was merely 1 per cent back in 2005 which has increased to 10 per cent in last 17 years, which is very heartening for thousands of children suffering from thalassaemia in Pakistan,” Dr Zeeshan Ansari, a senior haematologist, told a blood donor conference organised by the Omair-Sana Foundation, a non-profit organisation working for the treatment, management and prevention of thalassaemia and other genetic blood disorders in Pakistan. Dr Zeeshan maintained that around 2.5 to 3 million blood bags were annually required in Pakistan to meet the blood needs of children suffering from thalassaemia, patients requiring surgeries and blood transfusion to women during or after childbirth.

“Around 150,000 bags are monthly required for children suffering from thalassaemia alone in Pakistan. These children require blood transfusion monthly or fortnightly. As voluntary blood donation is very rare in the country, parents of these children run after their relatives, friends and other people to get a bag of blood for their children,” the expert added.

He maintained that there was a need to increase voluntary blood donation up to 50 per cent to save lives of children suffering from genetic blood disorders, adding that there was also a need to prevent incidence of thalassaemia in Pakistan where 6,000 to 8,000 children were born with the blood disorder.

Omair-Sana Foundation Secretary General Dr Saqib Ansari said NGOs working for the welfare of children of thalassaemic children faced extreme difficulties in collecting blood during the pandemic due to closure of educational institutions but now the situation was getting back to normal.

Urging federal and provincial governments to implement the mandatory screening of couples before marriage, he said children with thalassaemia remained dependent on blood transfusions for their entire lives.

Dr Saqib urged the people to regularly donate blood for those who were dependent on blood transfusions, saying that in Europe people proudly donated blood for two to three times in a year but in Pakistan, only 10 per cent people donated blood which needed to be enhanced.

He said they did not collect blood from jails in Pakistan because they believed in safe blood transfusion as most of the jail inmates suffered from blood-borne diseases like hepatitis and HIV.

United States-based Pakistani oncologist Dr Kashif Ansari, orthopaedic surgeon Dr Junaid Ali Shah, former test cricketer Shoaib Muhammad, Dr Rahat Hussain and donors from different corporate organisations also spoke at the conference.