World Blood Donor Day : 55,000 pints of blood per year needs to be collected

In the context of the World Blood Day, celebrated on 14th June, a workshop has been organized on Blood Sustainablity-Present and Future, organised at Gold Crest Hotel in Quatre Bornes. The one-day brainstorming session aims at gathering inputs from relevant stakeholders so as to develop strategies and an action plan for a sustainable and safe blood supply.

Present at this workshop, the Minister of Health and Quality of Life, Dr Anwar Husnoo, made an appeal to the population to donate as frequently as possible and to encourage more people to join this life-saving mission to help us collect 55,000 pints of blood per year.

Speaking about how transfusion of blood and blood products helps save millions of lives every year, Dr Husnoo underlined that it can help patients suffering from life-threatening conditions live longer and with a higher quality of life, and support complex medical and surgical procedures. It also has an essential, life-saving role in maternal and child care and during the emergency response to man-made and natural disasters, he said.

He highlighted that the need for blood in Mauritius is on the rise due to high prevalence of non-communicable diseases like cardiovascular diseases and cancer while the blood donor pool is gradually shrinking for the same reasons and an aging population. Hence the need, he stated, to motivate, educate and inform the population on the importance of blood donation.

The Health Minister emphasised that young people, who tend to be healthy, idealistic and motivated, are an excellent pool of potential voluntary, unpaid blood donors. Recruiting and retaining youth donors improves the long-term safety and sufficiency of a country’s blood supply, he added.

Blood donation is an altruistic action that benefits society and it also promotes community values through the enhancement of community solidarity and social cohesion and encourages people to care for one another and build a caring community, he said.

The aim, Dr Husnoo pointed out, is to collect blood from 100% voluntary blood donors so as to ensure an adequate blood supply. Blood units from voluntary donors in Mauritius are on the rise, increasing from 25% ten years ago to 92% currently, he said.

Speaking about blood transfusion in Mauritius, he underlined that it is around 77 per 1,000 population, the highest in Africa and at par with high-income countries. The key, however, he stated, is to ensure availability and safety and quality of blood at all times.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Representative, Dr Laurent Musango, for his part, stated that Mauritius has made significant progress to improve the safety of blood. He enumerated several measures, taken by the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS), which have helped to improve the quality of blood transfusion and the service.

They include: Increase in voluntary blood donors from 60% in 2006 to 86.3% in 2017; separation of blood into components; ISO certification of the NBTS; and computerisation of all blood transfusion activities.