HARARE - Zimbabwes blood bank has just one third of the supplies it required the latest statistic that reveals a deepening crisis in the national health sector, reports said Saturday. The National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) has just 1,000 units of blood nstead of the requisite 3,000 units, spokesman Emmanuel Masvikeni told the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
In case of any crisis, the blood is not adequate, said Masvikeni. He said the situation would worsen when school pupils, who contribute 75 per cent of blood to the blood bank, go on holiday ahead of elections on March 29. Zimbabwe has high rates of HIV/AIDS and children are considered a safer source of blood, although all blood is screened before being sold to hospitals.
The NBTS was encouraging adults to support a noble cause by donating blood to boost supplies, state radio said Saturday.
This is the latest crisis to hit Zimbabwes health sector, battered by economic challenges that include inflation of more than 100,000 per cent, frequent power outages and chronic shortages of hard currency to import medical drugs. Last week, Deputy Health Minister Edwin Muguti confirmed that the countrys biggest hospital Harares Parirenyatwa Hospital had stopped carrying out surgical operations due to shortages of anaesthetic drugs and sterilising agents.
In January, it emerged that 50 per cent of medical drugs were out of stock in pharmacies in Harare. The head of the Pharmaceutical Society of Zimbabwe said then that most pharmacies could not afford to import drugs.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/01/2008 14:27 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11129 views]
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#1
Has ZimBoob tried growing turnips yet to make up for the blood shortage?
I really can't see ZimBob's gubmint buddies and special friends cronies donating blood to a bank for use by just anyone, and the normal people appear to be too malnourished to have any blood to spare.
Iz a puzzlement....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/01/2008 18:23 Comments ||
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#3
apparently, regime opponents gave their all, a la Dr. Phibes
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/01/2008 18:32 Comments ||
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#4
I think the idea of a blood bank is a good one, but in areas where AIDS is rampant I'd be sure to solicit blood elsewhere, say a whole different continent.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/01/2008 22:15 Comments ||
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YEREVANers - Armenian President Robert Kocharyan declared a state of emergency in the capital on Saturday as he sought to end protests over a presidential election which the opposition says was rigged. A statement from the presidential press service said Kocharyan had signed a decree declaring the state of emergency until March 20 to prevent a threat to constitutional order.
Earlier, riot police fired in the air and used teargas in a bid to disperse an opposition rally in Yerevan, scene of street protests over a Feb. 19 presidential election which elected an ally of Kocharyan as president. The crowd of at least 5,000 opposition supporters massed in an area near the mayors office after a 10-day sit-in was broken up by baton-wielding police in the early hours.
Later sporadic shooting erupted from the area and this correspondent saw red and yellow tracer rounds in the sky. A protester in the crowd, reached by mobile telephone, said: They (the police) shot in the air to scare us. They have fired tear gas. But people are standing firm. There are thousands of people standing here with us.
Hundreds of policemen in full riot gear cordoned off the area where several embassies are located.
Some protesters near the mayors office held crowbars and metal rods. Some others protesters decanted fuel from the buses into bottles.
The opposition, led by former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, claim says the election of Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan as president was fraudulent. Several thousand opposition supporters have been protesting daily in the capitals Freedom Square since Sarksyan was elected.
Armenias State Guard Service told local Mediamax agency it had effectively placed Ter-Petrosyan -- the first president after independence from the Soviet Union who ran against Sarksyan -- under house arrest. Otherwise, the State Guard Service is unable to bear responsibility for the safety of Levon Ter-Petrosyan, since it cannot accompany him to illegal events, the service said.
Police said they moved in after receiving information a coup was being prepared. They said they had seized pistols and grenades. The opposition denied the charges and said it was using only peaceful means. Permission or no permission (from the authorities), we will all the same press ahead with protests, because rallies and marches can only be banned when there is a state of emergency, Ter-Petrosyan told reporters. I am deeply convinced that even if Sarksyan stays on, he wont be a legitimate president, he said.
Police said they had used force after protesters started throwing stones and metal rods at them. Calls for a violent coup were heard, the police statement said.
Ter-Petrosyan launched the protests after alleging Sarksyan had used ballot-stuffing and intimidation to steal victory. Western observers called the vote broadly fair.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
HARARE - Zimbabwes blood bank has just one third of the supplies it required the latest statistic that reveals a deepening crisis in the national health sector, reports said Saturday. The National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) has just 1,000 units of blood nstead of the requisite 3,000 units, spokesman Emmanuel Masvikeni told the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
