HARARE - Zimbabwe’s blood bank has just one third of the supplies it required the latest statistic that reveals a deepening crisis in the national health sector, reports said Saturday. The National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) has just 1,000 units of blood nstead of the requisite 3,000 units, spokesman Emmanuel Masvikeni told the state-controlled Herald newspaper.‘In case of any crisis, the blood is not adequate,’ said Masvikeni. He said the situation would worsen when school pupils, who contribute 75 per cent of blood to the blood bank, go on holiday ahead of elections on March 29. Zimbabwe has high rates of HIV/AIDS and children are considered a safer source of blood, although all blood is screened before being sold to hospitals.
The NBTS was encouraging adults to support a ‘noble cause’ by donating blood to boost supplies, state radio said Saturday.
This is the latest crisis to hit ZimbabweÂ’s health sector, battered by economic challenges that include inflation of more than 100,000 per cent, frequent power outages and chronic shortages of hard currency to import medical drugs. Last week, Deputy Health Minister Edwin Muguti confirmed that the countryÂ’s biggest hospital HarareÂ’s Parirenyatwa Hospital had stopped carrying out surgical operations due to shortages of anaesthetic drugs and sterilising agents.
In January, it emerged that 50 per cent of medical drugs were out of stock in pharmacies in Harare. The head of the Pharmaceutical Society of Zimbabwe said then that most pharmacies could not afford to import drugs.