HYDERABAD: Doctors urge citizens to donate blood as the number of dengue cases rises every day in the State. Social media has been filled with requests for donation of specific blood groups due to the rising dengue cases.
However, activists have questioned the need for blood donations, while blood is available at blood banks. Dr K Shankar, Director of the Institute of Preventive Medicine, explains that fresh blood has a higher and more potent content of platelets than blood that has been stored in blood banks, and this is why constant donation of fresh blood is necessary during the dengue epidemic.
Institute of Preventive Medicine will also hold blood donation camps on September 20 and September 24. The hospital is expecting over 450 samples of blood donation on the two days. Additionally, superintendents of both, Osmania and Gandhi Hospitals have stated that they urge patients to find fresh blood before opting for stored blood in the hospital reserves.
Speaking to Express, Dr K Shankar explained, “Platelets in the blood usually have a very low life span once it has been extracted. And therefore, even when a patient is getting tested for dengue, it is prescribed to get the samples tested as soon as possible to get the correct count as the platelet counts keep dropping drastically. Which is why we always suggest people to donate blood the moment it is required.”
He further added, “The IPM blood bank sends blood units to Osmania, Gandhi, Niloufer and PetlaBurj
Hospitals. We also provide blood units to individuals when an emergency case turns up.” Clearing up the confusion about blood groups for platelet transfusion, he said, “The blood groups do not need to match for platelet transfusion. However, many hospitals where the lab work is done manually without a SDPT machine, health technicians insist on the same blood group because even a single red blood cell of a different blood group can cause a serious reaction.”
Dr V Vijayasanti, the medical officer in-charge of the Central Blood Bank at IPM, also warned, “People who want to donate blood, especially on emergency basis, need to know that they should not donate blood after consuming any form of pain killers for at least 72 hours.”
Sec’bad Cantt Hospital cannot treat dengue
Hyderabad: The Secunderabad Cantt hospital in Bolarum is not equipped to tackle dengue. There is not much that the hospital staff can do to treat these patients. According to the medical superintendent of the hospital Dr Manju Rani, in the past few weeks, there has been a rise in dengue cases. She claims that in the regular footfall of 350-400 patients daily, a huge number of them are showing dengue symptoms. “As we do not have any labs in the hospital we can not test if a patient has dengue or not,” she said