The Health through the National Blood Transfusion Services (NBTS) will be increasing blood donation efforts for 2024 as the country moves to conduct more organ transplant surgeries. This is according to the Director of the NBTS, Dr Pedro Lewis during an interview with this publication, who added that the unit is ramping up efforts to encourage more blood donors. He added too, that the units of blood processed for 2023 thus far, have surpassed that of the previous year.
According to data provided by the agency, 400 blood drives were conducted last year across the ten administrative regions of Guyana, resulting in the collection of 11,225 units of blood, which is approximately 1,300 units more than in previous years. Of the 11,225 units, 400 were disposed after being tested for infectious makers like Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), among others. However, for 2024 thus far, some 5000 units were processed for use and according to Dr.
Lewis, this figure highlights the agency’s ability to meet its current monthly quota. “So we look at roughly about 1000 units a month. We want to aim higher, like 1,200 units a month, right? That’s a lot of blood, but of course, you may notice that the amount of development that goes on in the health sector, right? Guyana wants to do more heart surgeries, now we’re doing, in the past, we used to do heart surgeries every quarter, we’re doing heart surgeries every month and we got to ramp up our system to.
