To avoid cross-infection to donors at blood banks attached to hospitals, the Telangana government has decided to collect blood at the standalone blood centre at Institute of Preventive Medicine (IPM), Narayanguda. Blood and its components like plasma will be given based on request received from blood banks or centres at hospitals.
District Medical and Health Officer (DMHO) J Venkati said donors would be given through WhatsApp, which could be shown to the police to get clearance on roads. Apart from name and other details, a timeslot for the donation would be mentioned on it. They have to call 8497958597 or 040-29569047 between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. for the passes.
In-charge of the COVID-19 voluntary blood donation drive Prasad Muvva said that when a person calls, they would ask the donor if they had any international or national travel history in the past one month, if they suffered from fever, cold or cough in the past one month, if they had contact with any COVID-19 patient or were suspected of COVID-19. Further, donor’s body temperature and blood pressure would be checked. This was meant to ensure that blood was not collected from people carrying the virus.
Regular blood donation camps had not been conducted by government blood banks in the past two weeks in view of the lockdown. Some objectives of the initiative are to minimise infection transmission to both donors and recipients, to serve all government blood banks in the districts, to enlist rare blood groups and ensure availability.
An average of 100 to 115 units of blood would be collected in a day during the COVID-19 pandemic. It would be further processed into components such as plasma and red blood cells.
There are around 1,625 patients suffering from thalassemia in the State and they require regular blood transfusion twice a month. Health department officials released a format of the ‘Donor appointment’ pass. Communication about the initiative was given to the police.