JOHANNESBURG – The South African National Blood Service (SANBS) says that while blood stocks have shown a slight recovery, supplies remain at just four days.
The organisation is appealing for more donations ahead of the festive season, when demand for blood typically increases.
SANBS needs to collect 3,500 units of blood daily to meet demand and maintain a five-day blood supply.
However, collections are currently falling behind demand, placing continued pressure on national stocks.
SANBS's Siemi Prithvi Raj said that despite the slight improvement, the situation remains concerning.
“Since we sent out this notification, we’ve had a very slight recovery in our blood stocks,” she said.
“We are sitting at just about four days stock. This in essence means that if we stop collecting blood now, in four days’ time, we will run out. For the patients it is critically important that we have sufficient blood available when there is a request to be fulfilled.”
Raj said maintaining a five-day supply would ensure that blood could be distributed to blood banks across all eight provinces they service to meet patients' needs.
“That stock level assists us in our operations and ensures that we are able to seamlessly meet the demand,” she added.
She said SANBS traditionally experiences a decline in donations during this period, largely because of its reliance on schools for blood drives.
“It is difficult to access the learners during our school blood drives as they are writing examinations. We have also seen an increase in the demand for blood over the last couple of months and that has posed additional pressure on the stock levels.”
Raj explained that rebuilding stocks from four to five days would require a significant increase in donations.
“We need 3,500 units of blood daily to adequately meet the demand. Technically, what that means is when you are sitting at four days stock and you want to increase to five, you'd need to come to collect 7,000 units to make that one day jump. It is quite significant and practically, we're not able to do that very quickly.
“We have a huge reliance on donors, our dedicated donors who respond to our call, but also we are encouraging individuals who have never donated before to become blood donors to assist us, particularly during these times when we are challenged in maintaining our stock levels.”
Raj also called on businesses, organisations and communities to support blood donation efforts by making suitable, publicly accessible venues available for blood drives.