Financial Express: Access To Safe Blood During A Pandemic

COVID-19: Access To Adequate And Safe Blood During A Pandemic

Financial Express, Suryaprabha Sadasivan, 18 April 2020

(Image courtesy of Financial Express)

Coronavirus pandemic: Until recently, most of us probably had never heard of the word ‘pandemic’. This word comes from the Greek word pandemos ( pan ‘all’ + demos ‘people’). In the beginning of 2020, none of us could have imagined the sudden emergence of a pathogen to which the human race has little or no immunity and for it to have pushed the entire world on the brink of a social and economic uncertainty.

Historically speaking, the 20th Century was marked by three major influenza pandemics involving substantial mortality – ‘Spanish flu’ of 1918–1919, ‘Asian flu’ of 1957–1958 and ‘Hong Kong flu’ of 1968–1969. More recently, in 2003, we saw the emergence of the deadly SARS in Asia which fortunately did not evolve into a pandemic.