Kerala Police to create awareness among youngsters to donate blood before getting vaccinated

As per the guidelines issued by the National Blood Transfusion Council, one cannot donate blood for 28 days after getting vaccinated which is expected to lead to an acute shortage of blood
Representative Image | Pic: PTI
Representative Image | Pic: PTI

After the shortage of ICU beds and sufficient human resources to treat the rising covid cases, the next major concern to worry about will be a shortage of blood in the coming days. As per the guidelines issued by the National Blood Transfusion Council, one cannot donate blood for 28 days after getting vaccinated which is expected to lead to an acute shortage of blood in the next two months.

Foreseeing this crisis in the coming days, the Kerala Police have come up with an add on option in its mobile application 'POL- App, seeking people between the age group of 18- 45 to register their names in the app expressing their consent before the vaccination. The mobile application functioning under the Kerala Police Department as a digital initiative to give the common public easy access to all the services of the department has extended an additional feature named as POL- Blood, where the interested people can register their names as consent to donate blood before getting vaccinated.

The Blood Donors Association- Kozhikode chapter member Raghunath KP said, "The first crisis that we faced was during the lockdown period when all the hospitals almost drained out their blood bank as everyone was inside their houses. At that crisis situation it was the hospitals functioning around the State that decided to promote blood donation drives among its staff to stock up the blood bank. At the same time the lockdown did not affect the system, as the number of accidents during that phase was very minimal." He added, "It is the need of the hour to stock sufficient blood as once the vaccination drive will be opened to all citizens; we will not have people to donate blood."

The Kerala Police had already started the awareness drive for blood donation through its various digital platforms. It has been noticed that the people are hesitant to come to the hospital to donate blood during the pandemic but for those who have registered their consents in the mobile application, all the necessary steps would be taken to safely donate the blood. As per the records from the blood bank, it is mostly the people between the age group 18 to 40 that donates blood but once the vaccination drive for this age group is open, the number of people coming forward for blood donation will reduce. The police officials here pointed out that multiple discussions will be conducted with the health experts on how to meet the challenge and also several awareness drives to encourage youth to donate blood before getting vaccination will also be conducted in the coming days.

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