The growing Covid-19 infections have scared away Kisii residents from donating blood.
The Kenya National Blood Transfusion satellite centre officer-in-charge, Henry Sendora, said previously a good number of residents visited the centre but since the outbreak, only a few people have volunteered to donate blood.
“The outbreak has made it impossible for us to conduct blood donation in the two counties [Kisii and Nyamira],” the officer said.
Sendora said the centre, which serves other counties besides Kisii and Nyamira, requires 2,000 units of blood per week.
He said out of the 2,000 units, Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital uses 850.
Sendora said the demand for blood in the region is higher than the supply and urged residents to donate.
However, no patient has lost their life for lack of blood at the county referral hospital, he said.
Sendora said screening of blood was done in Kisumu or Eldoret and this would take a long time but now it takes only 48 hours because of the availability of modern machines.
In order to have more blood, he urged the national government to provide resources to enable them to conduct a blood donation exercise.
Kisii and Nyamira experienced blood shortage because only 60 units out of the required 24,000 per year were available.
He said the situation is not as appalling as it was only four months ago that they lacked testing kits, blood bags and other equipment.
Sendora said they experienced acute blood shortage in September 2019 when Pepfar, an NGO based in the US, pulled out of the project.
Edited by Frank Obonyo
