WHO says Pakistan receives less than half of 5 million blood donations it needs annually
About 1.9 million of Pakistan's 2.3 million annual blood donations come from family or replacement donors, while only 18 percent are voluntary and unpaid, according to official data cited by the WHO.
This reliance often delays treatment and poses risks for patients with chronic conditions such as thalassemia, hemophilia and cancer, who require regular transfusions.
'Medical centers in Pakistan need over 5 million blood donations annually and will require 5.6 million by 2030 but they are currently receiving only approximately 2.3 million donations per year,' the WHO said in a statement released on World Blood Donor Day.
The WHO and Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences held a blood donation drive in which around 150 volunteers participated under the theme 'Give blood, give hope – together we save lives.'
As per the WHO, voluntary blood donations are considered the safest and most sustainable as such donors are less likely to transmit infectious diseases, it added. WHO's representative in Pakistan, Dr. Dapeng Luo, highlighted that each blood donation could save up to three lives.
'Every patient who needs blood should be able to receive it,' he said. 'WHO will continue to work with Pakistan to strengthen a blood service that promotes voluntary donations and gives patients access to safe blood and blood products in sufficient quantity.'
Pakistan's health ministry and the WHO urged the public to donate blood voluntarily to help address a shortage that is straining hospitals' ability to save lives.
Pakistan's Director General of Health, Shabana Saleem, welcomed the technical support from the WHO, saying it would lead to improved screening and testing.
'Giving blood is giving life, and together we can do this,' she said. 'We are in the phase of revitalizing the Regional Blood Transfusion Center.'
The WHO concluded that it was supporting Pakistan in strengthening blood banks and promoting standardized screening methods to ensure safe and sufficient blood supplies for all.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Arabiya
9 minutes ago
- Al Arabiya
US recalls shrimp sold in Walmart over potential radioactivity scare
US health authorities announced Tuesday a recall of frozen shrimp potentially contaminated with radioactivity. The seafood imported from a company in Indonesia has been marketed in 13 states by retail giant Walmart, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on its website. The recall follows the detection of the radioactive isotope Cesium 137 in shrimp imported through the company called PT. Bahari Makmur Sejati, the advisory said. The level of radioactivity detected was minimal and the product would not pose 'an acute hazard' to consumers, the FDA said. No shrimp imported by the company and stocked for sale in US stores has tested positive for radioactivity, the agency said. But shrimp from the firm 'appears to have been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with Cs-137 and may pose a safety concern.' Over the long term, even low-dose Cesium exposure is linked to an elevated risk of cancer, it added. The FDA asked Walmart to stage a recall of the shrimp and urged people who already bought the product to throw it away.
Arab News
7 hours ago
- Arab News
How Gaza's hospitals became a battleground against Israeli bombs and hunger
LONDON: In Gaza's overwhelmed hospitals, doctors, nurses and other medical staff are battling against what many fear could be their most insurmountable challenge in nearly two years of Israel's war on the territory's people — hunger. 'We go to work sometimes without eating and we treat patients while actually feeling dizzy, lightheaded and weak,' said Dr. Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, a physician working in the territory. 'The starvation is not just hitting families in Gaza it's hitting the health workers too.' Gaza's health sector has been decimated by Israel's devastating military assault. Hospitals have been bombed, doctors killed and detained, and medical supplies cut off. Beleaguered and bloodied, health care workers are now locked in a daily struggle against hunger and malnutrition affecting people across the entire territory. If the medical staff cannot eat and are not strong enough to perform the painstaking work needed to treat a battered and malnourished population, the situation can only deteriorate. In accounts provided to Arab News from medical charities, hospital workers have described their daily struggles to find enough food to sustain them through their long shifts and feed their families. They describe colleagues fainting at work, struggling to continue their lifesaving care for those bombed, starved and shot at as they try to reach the meagre food supplies making it into the territory. Abu Mughaisib, who is the deputy medical coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres in Gaza, said that despite the decades of conflict affecting the territory, he never imagined such a situation. He said most days he and his colleagues eat only one basic meal of bread with canned food or lentils. Some days the market is completely empty, and there are never any vegetables, fruit, or meat. 'Honestly, we don't have options,' he said, almost anticipating that those outside of Gaza would not believe him. 'In the hospitals there is no food for the medical staff. Some health workers faint during their shift. They clean the wounds, they deliver babies, and perform surgeries on empty stomachs. 'Some of my colleagues started to lose weight rapidly. Some of them cannot produce milk to breastfeed their babies. This is not just burnout this is real physical starvation.' Dr. Saeed Salah, medical director of the Patient's Friends Benevolent Society Hospital in northern Gaza, described the food shortages as the 'greatest crisis' his colleagues and patients have faced. 'Some members of our medical staff themselves are malnourished and can no longer sustain the energy needed to perform their duties,' he said, in response to Arab News questions passed through the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians. 'Our emergency ward is overwhelmed with people who haven't eaten for days and are in urgent need of IV fluids. In over 21 months of operating under crisis, we've never seen days like these.' Summer Al-Jamal, a finance and admin assistant for MAP based at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, described the situation there as 'deeply distressing.' The hospital has been inundated with victims from shooting attacks on Palestinians gathered at aid distribution hubs nearby, as well as patients injured from Israeli bombings, or who are sick. Increasingly, they have been treating malnourished families and their children. 'The hospital is heavily burdened with departments overwhelmed by trauma cases and critically injured patients,' she said after a recent visit to the facility. 'The scale of suffering and the intensity of the emergency were unlike anything I had witnessed before. • Two of three famine thresholds have been reached in Gaza, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification platform. • Hunger cases crowd Gaza's overwhelmed hospitals, 94 percent of which are damaged or destroyed, the WHO said. 'The medical staff appear exhausted, physically and emotionally. Many looked pale, fatigued, and undernourished. The toll of the past weeks had left them drained.' After Israel launched its latest Gaza campaign in response to the Hamas-led attack in October 2023, the territory's health service soon came under fire. Casualties surged into hospitals, and the facilities also became targets for Israeli airstrikes. Nearly two years into the conflict, the health service is broken. Of the 36 hospitals in the territory before Israel's current war on Gaza, only 18 remain partially operational, and less than 40 percent of primary health care facilities are still functional, according to the World Health Organization. All the facilities have been damaged and are flooded with patients far beyond their maximum operating capacities. Gaza's Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed more than 1,500 Palestinian health workers since October 2023, with the WHO recording at least 700 attacks on health care facilities in the territory. Doctors and hospital staff have been detained, and more than 10,000 critically ill patients need to be evacuated. And then there is the dwindling medical supplies. Israel imposed a complete 11-week blockade on Gaza in March, leading to desperate shortages of medicines and equipment for hospitals, along with basic food for the entire population. The main UN agency distributing aid was forced to stop operating and was eventually replaced by the US- and Israeli-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Some supplies have resumed but at a fraction of what aid agencies say is required. The dire situation for the health sector was further exacerbated by the sharp increase in casualties last month as Israel ramped up its campaign in the face of an international outcry and widespread accusations of genocide. The WHO reported 13,500 injuries in Gaza in July — the highest since the first three months of Israel's war on the territory. Many of these took place when Israeli troops repeatedly opened fire on crowds of Palestinians as they waited to collect food from GHF distribution points. Amid all the carnage, the shortage of food means Gaza's people are now dying from starvation. Late last month, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global initiative that analyses food security, warned that the 'worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in Gaza.' The body said there would be 'widespread death' without immediate action. The Gaza Health Ministry said on Monday that 263 Palestinians had died of malnutrition and starvation, including 112 children, since the war started. Images of emaciated children being treated at hospitals have shocked the global community in recent weeks. Israeli officials have claimed the numbers are inflated and that the children died from pre-existing health conditions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed reports of severe hunger as Hamas 'lies' and insisted last week there is 'no policy of starvation.' His claims are at odds with those of doctors working in the territory, who have seen a surge in severe malnutrition cases. Rowida Sabbah, MAP's nutrition program lead in southern Gaza, described a recent case of a mother and her two children, aged 5 and 7, who had not eaten any bread for two months. 'For two days she had only been able to give them just water,' Sabbah said. The mother finally reached a medical hub for help. 'She was crying when she received the supplies,' she said. 'Every time I see children suffering from severe hunger and wasting away, my heart breaks. They beg for anything … even just a slice of bread with a pinch of salt. That's all they hope for.' For medical staff, the food shortages have pushed them to breaking point. Accounts given to Arab News describe the daily battle to source the most meagre of supplies, and desperate searches for small quantities of flour now selling at vastly inflated prices. 'Even health workers, already stretched to their physical and mental limits, are working long hours on little food, growing weaker as shortages persist,' Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, told Arab News. 'No one can sustain this, yet they keep showing up because patients have no one else. We call for large-scale aid, including diverse and nutritious food, to be allowed via all routes.' Support for Gaza's medical teams has also come from more than 100 fellow health workers around the world who have spent time working in the territory during the conflict. Last week they signed a letter expressing solidarity with their Palestinian colleagues as they are 'starved and shot by Israel' as part of a 'methodical attack' of the health system. 'Doctors, nurses, and first responders are all rapidly losing weight due to forced starvation at the hands of the Israeli government,' the letter stated. 'Many suffer from hunger, dizziness and fainting episodes while performing operations and triaging patients in emergency rooms. Most have been displaced into tents after being forced from their homes, and many are surviving on less than a single serving of rice a day.' The letter called for the immediate release of detained health workers, an end to attacks on medical facilities, and the lifting of Israel's blockade of humanitarian supplies. With little sign of progress on a ceasefire and Israel's ramping up of military operations around Gaza City, doctors in the territory are bracing for things to get even worse. Yet despite their hardship, they are working to provide the best treatment possible to a people brutalized by Israel's war. 'We are also facing a severe shortage of therapeutic infant formula,' Salah at the PFBS hospital said, focusing on the immediate challenges. 'Mothers are dehydrated and unable to breastfeed, and pregnant women are suffering complications and are at increased risk of miscarriage. Malnourished patients are deteriorating. 'Without urgent intervention, more lives will be lost.'
Arab News
10 hours ago
- Arab News
Disease, hunger, war: Sudan's overlooked emergency
The toll of the war in Sudan goes far beyond damaged infrastructure and lost lives — it has inflicted deep wounds on the dignity of its people. Families are torn apart, healthcare systems lie in ruins, and routine medical care has become a distant memory. The conflict has turned everyday survival into a monumental challenge; civilians face violence, displacement, hunger, and illness without access to even basic health services. This unfolding tragedy not only undermines the past sense of normalcy but also erodes hope. The inability to care for the sick and vulnerable assaults the core of human dignity. Hospitals have been attacked, clinics looted and occupied, and health workers have either fled, been threatened, or paid with their lives. These are not just physical injuries — this is a psychological blow to a nation's spirit. Over the past two years, the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces has turned critical portions of the health system into ghost towns. Almost 38 percent of health facilities have been rendered nonfunctional, and just 14 percent of hospitals still operate at full capacity, according to assessments by the World Health Organization's HeRAMS monitoring program. Khartoum — once the heartbeat of Sudan's health services, providing close to 70 percent of national care — has been particularly devastated. In many areas, medical facilities lie in ruins, with equipment destroyed or looted, and essential supply chains severed. Physical buildings are one thing, but the collapse of system-wide structure is far worse. Laboratories have shut down, pharmacies stand empty, vaccine cold chains have failed, and even simple medicines like antibiotics or insulin are scarce. Without trained staff, even basic functions like triage or sanitation are impossible. Women face childbirth without skilled attendants; patients with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension, or kidney disease, are ignored. The interruption of services for dialysis, antenatal care, and trauma threatens countless lives every day. On top of this devastation, Sudan is in the grip of multiple, overlapping epidemics. Cholera has spread to almost all of the country's states, overwhelming treatment centers, particularly in Darfur, where the toll has been especially heavy. Measles, once controlled through routine immunization, is surging, with almost 10,000 cases treated by Medecins Sans Frontieres clinics between June 2024 and May 2025. Hundreds of thousands of children have not received any vaccines, leaving them vulnerable to preventable diseases. Malaria cases are also surging, though true numbers are likely underreported due to collapsed surveillance systems. Alarmingly, 3.4 million children under five are at heightened risk from diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, and measles. This confluence of disease and conflict is happening alongside a humanitarian catastrophe. More than two-thirds of the population now needs aid, with millions facing famine-level hunger. Food shortages, coupled with skyrocketing prices and population displacement, have left countless Sudanese on the brink of starvation. Even in areas not directly under fire, malnutrition is causing immune systems to fail, making people more vulnerable to illness, and more likely to die of what would, in normal times, be treatable or preventable ailments. If current trends continue unchecked, Sudan faces a bleak future. Without functional health services, disease outbreaks will repeat year after year, claiming lives in waves. Preventable deaths will climb as complications from childbirth, infections, and chronic illnesses go untreated. Starvation will weaken the population further, creating a cycle of suffering that deepens with each passing season. Deaths will not just be tallied in tolls from violence but will come quietly, in homes, camps, and the streets. Moreover, Sudan's collapse is already spilling beyond its borders. The country hosts one of the largest internal displacement crises globally, and refugees fleeing by the hundreds of thousands are crossing into Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, and beyond. Overcrowded, under-resourced camps have become breeding grounds for disease, with cholera and measles now spreading across borders. Neighboring countries, many also with fragile systems, risk being overwhelmed. Healthcare resources are being diverted, budgets strained, and regional stability is compromised. Without immediate action, the ripple effects may reach even further, testing the resilience of health systems across the Horn of Africa, Sahel, and along vital Red Sea trade corridors. The need for international intervention is both urgent and obvious. A powerful, coordinated response could make the difference between controlled recovery and irreversible collapse. First and foremost, a ceasefire that ensures safe humanitarian corridors is essential. Without peace, or at least reliable access, aid cannot reach those in need. Humanitarian pauses would allow for the repair of water systems, delivery of vaccines, restoration of cold chains, and evacuation of the critically ill. Protection of healthcare must be enforced. More than 600 verified attacks on health facilities since 2023 have destroyed the very structures meant to save lives. Healthcare deserves the highest levels of international legal protection, and perpetrators must be held accountable for destroying hospitals and killing health workers. Every day of inaction means more children dying. Dr. Majid Rafizadeh Donations to support lifesaving health and nutrition interventions are urgently needed. WHO, UNICEF, MSF, International Rescue Committee, and other front-line responders are operating with huge funding gaps. Without emergency financing, services such as oral cholera vaccination, measles campaigns, mobile clinics, trauma kits, and nutrition support will fail. Fuel for generators and cold chains, oxygen for acute care, food for malnourished children, and medicines for chronic patients must be prioritized immediately. High-impact campaigns such as mass vaccinations, and water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions can break disease cycles. Mobile outreach services should follow displaced populations and deliver care even in remote areas. More oral cholera and measles vaccines, hygiene kits, and water chlorination are proven, cost-effective tools. For vulnerable border areas, pre-positioned supplies and technical support can contain the spread of diseases beyond Sudan. Front-line NGOs deserve both support and freedom to operate. They provide surgical services, treat cholera and malnutrition, and keep fragile systems alive in impossible conditions. Unrestricted, flexible funding and eased logistics are lifelines that save lives. In sum, Sudan's health emergency is one of the most urgent global crises of our time. The world cannot afford complacency or wait for a 'window of opportunity' that may never come. Every day of inaction means more children dying from preventable illnesses, more mothers perishing in childbirth, and more families stripped of their dignity. A concerted, compassionate response anchored in humanitarian principles and fueled by international solidarity still has power to prevent further catastrophe. But time is running out — and with it, the chance to preserve the lives and futures of millions.
