Pachi excels in courting blood donors
Parent and Child Health Initiative (Pachi) is attracting blood donors aged between 25 and 65 at a time the Malawi Blood Transfusion Services (MBTS) is struggling to convince people from the same age bracket to donate blood.
Speaking to The Nation yesterday on preparations for this year’s World Blood Donor Day —which centres on ‘Safe Blood for Mothers’ —Pachi communications officer Mwereti Kanjo said for a long time MBTS has been relying on secondary school students as its main source of blood.
She, however, observed that this blood-donor base (secondary schools) is shrinking because students are now enroling at a younger age compared to the past.
Said Kanjo: “Through our project, MamaYe, we are collecting blood in communities through action development committees (ADC) with the help of traditional leaders and influential people at district level like the district commissioner (DC) and district health officer (DHO).”
She said, so far, Pachi has held two campaigns in Mchinji and Balaka where 446 units of blood were collected.
On average, MBTS collects 140 units of blood every day—short of 80 units to achieve the expected 220 units while per year the required amount of blood is about 80 000 units.
This year’s blood donor day theme coincides with revelations by WHO that every day about 800 women die worldwide from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. More than half of these maternal deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, with severe bleeding as the leading cause.
