NEW DELHI, Apr 22:
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has asked the Indian Red Cross Society to send mobile blood collection vans to the premises of regular blood donors to facilitate them to come forward for blood donation at this point of time.
The Union Minister said he had also written to State Health Ministers to promote voluntary blood donation and exhorted them to keep sufficient blood stock for transfusion by promoting voluntary blood donation and providing facilities of pick up and drop to donors.
His remarks came while addressing Red Cross workers from all over India at a video conference held on Tuesday where he gave details of efforts made by the Government to deal with COVID-19, an official release here said.
Dr Harsh Vardhan urged IRCS to contact recovered COVID-19 patients to come forward for blood donation, from which convalescent plasma could be used for transfusion to the Corona affected patients for their early recovery. IRCS could take this up at the earliest so that the blood collected from the recovered patients could be used for transfusion for the benefit of Corona patients.
“I really value Indian Red Cross fraternity having given a great contribution in our fight against COVID-19. In fact the contribution is appreciable for providing equipment, sanitisers, food, PPE kits and N95 masks for hospitals,” the Health Minister stated while interacting with the Red Cross members across the country through video conferencing with an aim to involve them to assist in involving more and more concerned people in the fight against COVID-19.
Representatives of Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) from Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Telangana, Delhi and Karnataka apprised the Minister about the activities undertaken by their respective branches. ICRC Secretary General R K Jain was present in person at the VC.
Dr Harsh Vardhan said earlier the COVID-19 samples were sent to the US for testing which took a lot of time for results, but during the present crisis India had developed around 200 labs for testing samples.
India, he said, had imposed lockdown at the right time to stop the spread of the dreaded virus. Right now India had ample number of COVID-19 dedicated hospitals, PPEs, N95 masks, ventilators and medicines. He said “we are at a better footing as compared to rest of the world.”
Mr Jain informed that the Indian Red Cross was a voluntary humanitarian organisation having a network of more than 1,100 branches throughout the country, providing relief in times of disasters/emergencies and promotes health and care of the vulnerable people and communities. (UNI)
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