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Kenya: Blood banks to target new donors
Source / Author - William Omwega

A sample of donated blood is being screened at the laboratory before being stored in the blood bank

NAIROBI-AHIC 10th October 2008-The Blood is the nature's unique gift to the human beings for the survival, maintenance and normal restoration. The most important and salient features of the blood are that it can never be synthesized in any factory or clinical laboratory of the world. For its total requirement, it is to be slowly relied upon donors only .In Kenya, for many years the main donors to all the blood banks have been the youth in secondary schools and colleges.

But lately, things have not been easy for the blood banks as a result of unrests in secondary schools witnessed mid this year. Most of the blood banks in major towns in the country were severely affected, with most of them almost running dry as their major donors who are students were sent home after going on rampage.

In an exclusive interview with AHIC, Mr. Samwel Ongwae, National Laboratory Manager at the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) confirmed that indeed the school unrest had considerably affected the output of blood banks in the country.

“Our blood banks were severely affected by the strikes and eventual closures of most schools. This is because our traditional blood donors have always been high school students who donate 80-90 percent of the blood that we need” Mr. Ogwae said. He added that the situation was further complicated by the ministry of education’s directive to ban holiday tuition in all schools.

Mr. Ogwae said that,this was the second time the body in-charge of collecting blood country wide was having its operation affected this year.The first time the blood banks were affected was during the post election violence that erupted in country over the disputed December 2007 general elections .The skirmishes forced some centers to temporarily close down in the violence hard hit areas of: Eldoret ,Nakuru ,Kisumu and Mombasa.

Mr. Ongwae however revealed that to avoid such interruptions in future, the blood banks are planning to shift their focus from traditional donors. "National Blood Transfusion Service is currently targeting new donors in universities, colleges and other higher institutions of learning to avoid a similar scenario in the future” Mr. Ongwae said. He said most Kenyans feared donating blood due to ignorance on their HIV/AIDS status.Most feared discovering their status in the process of donating blood.

Mr. Ongwae said that students had no reason whatsoever of not donating blood over the highly fabricated rumors of high prevalence rate of students living HIV in secondary schools. He added that the law was clear on who should be informed of their HIV status, as it sternly protected the minors.

"Most of the time we are at loss as to the source of such rumors yet the only thing we give back to the students’ donors is a blood donation certificate indicating their blood group only. The Kenyan law currently does not allow us to disclose HIV status to minors. This is contrary to what has been circulating widely in the media. The HIV prevalence in secondary schools captured from the blood donation exercise stand at less than 2 percent”. Mr. Ongwae lamented

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