The Need for Young Nigerians to Donate Blood
Blood is an important resource, both for planned treatments and urgent interventions. It can help patients suffering from life-threatening conditions live longer and with a higher quality of life, supports complex medical and surgical procedures. Blood is also vital for treating the wounded during emergencies of all kinds (disasters, accidents, armed conflicts, etc.) and has an essential, life-saving role in maternal and perinatal care (WHO). This year’s theme set by the WHO for World Blood Donor day is “Give Blood, Give Now, Give Often” to encourage people not to wait until there is an immediate family need or emergencies.
Nigeria has an estimated blood need of about 1.4 to 1.7 million pints per annum. The current structure of voluntary blood collection has not been able to go beyond 10% voluntary collection per annum. This is reflected in the WHO report, which indicates that 26% of maternal deaths in sub-Saharan Africa occur due to the challenges in finding blood in real-time.
Consequently, a thriving ‘blood black market’ has been created, which is expensive and dangerous. It can cost anywhere between N15,000 to over N25,000 in emergencies for a pint of blood, more for rare blood groups. This is higher than the monthly minimum wage ( N18,000), whilst also endangering the lives of donors who give serially for the payment they receive. These commercial blood donors can be paid anything between N1,500 to N5000 every time they donate and this practice is especially common in Lagos. This currently makes up about 30% of blood donations.
Finally family donations account for 60% of blood supply. This means that patients, especially pregnant women are forced to get family relations to donate to the hospital bank before they are treated or released. This situation is in dire need of reversal if Nigeria is to attain a 100% voluntary non-remunerated blood donation by year 2020, a goal set by the WHO.
Young people have a huge part in making this a reality and it is a goal that can be easily attained with proper education. Nigeria as the most populous country in Africa has roughly 60 million youths aged between 18–35, the majority of whom would be healthy enough to donate at least three times a year.
With our bourgeoning youthful population and the high levels of education, it is appalling that we still suffer severe shortages of blood because of fear, traditional beliefs, cynicism and the need for payments.
I started Haima Health Initiative to connect between patients in need of blood to eligible donors in Nigeria using simple technology and education. We are working to build the largest online database on voluntary blood donors in Nigeria.
Our model also allows us to locate the closest donors within an area of a patient and link them to the patient. We do this because a large part of the blood supply chain problem in Nigeria is lack of infrastructure to properly store the blood. Blood has a storage life of up to 42 days in refrigerated conditions but Nigeria does not have enough well equipped banks to meet the demand.
We also organise blood drives targeted at young people to fill up hospital banks and use social media as a tool to educate people on the safety of the process and dispel myths associated with it. Social media is also be used to search for donors within an area to reach a wider network.
Despite our challenges, there is usually quite a positive response from young people after their initial misconceptions and doubts have been corrected.
It is essential that young people take up the sustainable development challenges within various sectors of society and provide simple, long lasting solutions. We have the advantage of having unlimited information because of the internet and a wider network of people to work with.
I am so excited to be joining the Health team at the Unleash program in Denmark on Sunday. I cannot wait to see what we will be able to accomplish when we share experiences and ideas!
