ET HealthWorld: Blood Shortage Adds To Healthcare Burden
COVID-19: Blood Shortage Adding To The Healthcare Burden
ET HealthWorld, Dr Zarine S Bharucha and Suryaprabha Sadasivan, 20 April 2020
(Image courtesy of ET HealthWorld)
We are living in unprecedented times. Never before, in the last century has the world had to deal with a pandemic like Coronavirus (COVID-19) which has already claimed close to 115,000 lives, afflicting close to 19 lakh people globally and has pushed the entire world on the brink of a social and economic uncertainty. Besides its impact on public health, social welfare and economy, such pandemics cause enormous collateral damage to health systems; adverse health effects due to blood-shortage being a crucial one.
The WHO estimates that blood donation by 1% of the population is generally the minimum to meet a nation’s most basic need for blood. In India’s case, as per the data of 2016-17, there was a shortage of 1.9 million units (or 15%) vis-à-vis the WHO norm. While blood shortage and inconsistency remain a larger issue for India to deal with, the situation has become particularly worrisome owing to COVID-19 lockdown.
