Blood stocks run low

ZIMBABWE is facing a looming crisis in the supply of blood as donations plummet to worrying levels, a new research has revealed.

The revelation should jolt the government into action amid fears of looming blood shortages, experts say.

According to research by various scholars titled Blood donation projections using hierarchical time series forecasting: The case of Zimbabwe’s national blood bank, there has been a decrease in blood donations.

“This suggests the need for blood centre authorities to develop sound blood donor management interventions,” the report read.

“Such interventions include an integrated strategy of the entire blood safety value chain, including donor education, targeted recruitment and retention, scheduled fixed and mobile blood donation drives, safe blood collection and donor care and adequate resource allocation.”

The report also said there was a decline in the number of regular voluntary blood donors, particularly for blood group AB.

This decline poses a significant threat to the availability of blood for patients in need of transfusions.

“This can be attributed to a real problem of a continuous decline in numbers of regular voluntary blood donors in most blood centres,” the report said.

“Low blood donations for blood group AB are projected to continue in the short to long-term periods.

“Other researchers have attributed the lower donation volumes of female donors to high donor lapsing compared to male donors. Women generally donate blood less than men due to deferrals because of iron depletion through menstrual blood loss.”

The report indicated that COVID-19 disrupted blood donation patterns.

“The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic distorted the blood donation patterns such that the developed model did not capture the significant drop in blood donations during the pandemic period.”

“Blood collections trend took a downturn from April 2020 as the government of Zimbabwe introduced COVID-19 lockdown restrictions to reduce the spread of the pandemic.”

Earlier this year, the National Blood Services Zimbabwe called for more blood donations as the national blood stocks ran critically low.