New Delhi: Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday exhorted the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) to keep sufficient blood stock for transfusion by promoting voluntary blood donation and providing facilities of pick up and drop to donors.
The minister also asked the IRCS to send mobile blood collection vans to the premises of regular blood donors to facilitate them to come forward for donation at this point of time.
Vardhan urged the IRCS to contact recovered COVID-19 patients and ask them to come forward for blood donation from which convalescent plasma can be used for transfusion to the Coronavirus-affected patients for their early recovery.
"The IRCS may like to take up this at the earliest so that the blood collected from the recovered patients can be used for transfusion for the benefit of Coronavirus infected patients," he said.
Interacting with IRCS members from across India through a video conference, Vardhan said that earlier the COVID-19 samples were sent to US for testing which took a lot of time for results, but now India has developed around 200 labs for testing samples.
"Apart from this India imposed lockdown at the right time to stop the spread of the dreaded virus. Right now India has ample number of COVID-19 dedicated hospitals, PPEs, N95 masks, ventilators and medicines. We are at the better footing as compared to rest of the world," he said.
The Union minister has also written to state health ministers to promote voluntary blood donation.
