Yemen needs blood donors, not blood sellers, say doctors

The National Blood Transfusion and Research Center in Sana’a.

The National Blood Transfusion and Research Center in Sana’a commemorated World Blood Donor day last week, with several events intended to raise awareness of the need for blood donors. World Blood Donor Day is officially on June 14, but it was celebrated here on June 16. A march was organized for young people, as well as a running race, speeches, and an artistic presentation. The celebration, held in the Movenpick hotel, also included many songs and plays aimed at educating young people about the importance of blood donation. 

More than 500 young males and females participated in a march that began at the center’s headquarters in the al-Sabeen square and traveled to al-Tahrir square. The young people chanted the slogan “Renew your blood … Renew your belonging.”  Many young people also participated in the race. The winners were honored by the Minister of the Technical Education and Vocational Training, Dr. Ibrahim Hajri.  Officially designated as an annual event by the World Health Assembly in 2005, the World Blood Donor Day celebrates and thanks voluntary blood donors for their gift of blood and has become a major focus for action towards achieving global blood safety and availability.

“The diseases and disasters are not seasonal, and they do not give people a chance to be ready to face them, so any minute spent wrongly to support some people with safe blood may lead them to die. Therefore, people should remember this important moment all the time and donate their blood voluntarily,” said Dr. Hajri, reading the statement of Dr. Ali Mujawar, the Prime Minister.  The National Blood Transfusion and Research Center was established in May 2005, according to a republican decree and officially opened in June 2006. The goal of establishing such center was to manage and develop the services of examining and testing blood. 

“Frankly, the services for transfusing blood in Yemen are still weak. This operation has been governed by a bad system, since it is still dispersed in different laboratories in the governmental and private hospitals. The World Health Organization recommended separating out the operation of transfusing the blood into special centers in countries in the entire world,” said Dr. Arwa Awn, the General Director of the center.  “According to a ministerial decree, the blood banks in the hospitals should be closed, and blood units affiliated to the hospital should be opened. These units should be supervised by the center and their work is just to take the blood from the center and identify the groups.

But as you see, the center is small and the cadre is limited to cover all services needed in this center 24 hours a day. So until now, we do not ask the laboratories in the hospitals to stop their work in transfusing blood.” A new branch of the center was opened in Aden governorate in June 2007, to celebrate the WBDD. “Other branches will be opened in some big governorates such as al-Hodeidah, Taiz and Hadhramout as a first step to establish such centers in all Yemeni governorates,” she said.      

A medical worker checks out the store of precious blood.

The center was established to be responsible for the operations of collecting, storing and using the blood and its derivatives in all governorates. The center should be sure that all donated blood is safe and free from various diseases. It is also responsible for donating the blood in a safe way, protecting it from contamination, and supporting all health facilities with the needed blood.  Educating and encouraging society through the media to donate the blood are some other services made by the center. The center also follows new research specialized in the blood and its derivatives. One danger to Yemen’s blood supply is people who sell their blood for money.

These people often donate out of purely financial motivations, and may lie about diseases they have in order to make money selling their blood. “We suffer from many different problems in the center, but the most dangerous one is focused on those people who sell their blood in exchange for some high financial prices, which amount to about YR 15,000 for only one bag,” said Awn.  Some cancer patients come from different governorates to be treated in Sana’a hospitals, so they do not have any relatives in Sana’a. When they are asked to bring some blood bags, they are stopped by people outside the hospital who are waiting to donate their blood in exchange for money. 

“Such people are not interested in their health or the patient’s,” said Awn. “A lot of them know that they suffer from some health problems, such as AIDS, but they do not talk about these things, because they are only interested in getting money. The blood banks in Yemen previously used some simple primitive ways to examine the blood, so it was a difficult thing to discover such problems in these people and there was a great rate of transmitting the dangerous diseases among people. “In the center, we discover such problems by making some free special examinations, according to the world standards, but these things cost us a lot, since a single blood bag costs us about $150, to discover at the end that this blood is not good to be transfused to the patient,” said Awn.

“So we always call upon people in our society to come to the center and donate their blood voluntarily to avoid some patients resorting to those blood sellers and to avoid us spending a lot of money on blood we can’t use. No one should refuse to donate his blood today because he may need the people’s blood in the future.” Some people come to the center claiming that they voluntarily come to donate the blood. The next day, they come to reclaim their blood claiming that they have some relatives that need it. “Those people are another kind of blood seller. This is another problem we suffer from in the center,” she said.  “Before the last media campaign made in the WBDD, we just receive one, to four volunteer blood donors.

But after the campaign, we received about 40 in one day. I hope to see more young volunteers because they are the healthiest people in our society,” said Awn. Blood has many uses, such as general surgery, treatment of blood diseases, pediatrics and orthopedics.  Almost everyone knows someone who has needed a blood transfusion or required blood for other procedures, such as cancer treatment.  On WBDD, the global community recognizes the special life-saving role of voluntary non-remunerated blood donors.

This year’s theme was Safe Blood for Safe Motherhood, to highlight how voluntary blood donors can play a vital role in saving the lives of thousands of mothers and their newborns.  Each year, more than 500,000 women die needlessly during pregnancy or childbirth – 99 percent of them in the developing world.  Severe bleeding can kill even a healthy woman within two hours if unattended. This contributes to up to 44 percent of maternal deaths in Africa, where the risk of maternal death is 1 in 16, compared with 1 in 65 in Asia and 1 in 2,700 in North America. Up to one quarter of all maternal deaths could be saved by access to safe blood transfusion. 

Over 80 million units of blood are donated every year around the world, but only 38 percent is collected in developing countries where 82 percent of the global populations live. The events taking place worldwide on the WBDD aim to try to increase the number of people who are blood donor numbers as well as communicating to people the need for life-saving blood.

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