Dengue cases lead to blood scarcity

At PGI, where the demand for blood ranges between 35 and 40 units a day in normal days, the requirement has now shot up to 90 to 100 units. The situation is worse at private blood banks.

8220;The demand has definitely gone up since September, the season for the onset of dengue. It will last till the end of November. Our patients are largely taken care of by the donations from their relatives and also voluntary donors, but we get repeated requests from nursing homes and blood bank societies to provide them with additional units,8221; said Dr Neelam Marwaha, head of transfusion medicine at the PGI.

While the UT Health department says the city has recorded over 26 cases of dengue so far, in this season, and that more than 250 cases have been detected in the nearby towns and cities of Haryana and Punjab, the actual figure may be much more, going by the long queues at the blood banks.

Adding to the city8217;s burden are cases from the region, surging the demand for blood units and platelets.

The Blood Bank Society, an NGO, made a formal appeal to the public on Wednesday to donate blood for dengue patients.

8220;We get five to six new requests each day for platelets. Increasing cases require a large supply of these life-saving platelets, which can only be available from freshly donated blood. Significantly, they have a life span of only three days and have to be extracted within five hours of donation. Blood banks cannot store these. Only one dose can be extracted from fresh blood given by five donors at a time,8221; said Neeti Sareen, general secretary of the Blood Bank Society.

Society director Col R S Shah, who held a one-day camp at Yamunanagar on Wednesday, highlighted upon the extent of the demand. 8220;We collected 20 units at the camp and already 18 have been allotted to the patients waiting for platelets. We are now left with just two units to care to the new requests,8221; he said.

Platelets, a component separated manually or through machines from freshly donated blood, are required to treat severe dengue cases. The machines that can separate the components in a concentrated manner where one unit is capable for extracting more platelets are available at the blood banks at PGI, GMCH-32 and Fortis Hospital, Mohali.

8220;Not all dengue cases require platelets. Some dengue fever cases are treated by medication. In severe cases, the platelet count drops significantly,8221; added Col Shah.