TACLOBAN CITY – The Philippine Red Cross-Leyte Chapter announces that they were able to collect a total of 818 blood units during the month of January until the month of July from the various mass blood-letting that they conducted as supported by various organizations like the Philippine Army, Philippine Air Force, TOMECO and others.
Last year, the PRC-Leyte Chapter was able to collect a total of 1,059 blood units out of the targetted 1,500 blood units to be collected every year.
Out of 1,059 collected blood units last year, 634 blood units were from first time blood donors.
However, even the said collected blood last year did not reach their target collection, said amount of blood is still sufficient to the needs of the province.
“We only collect blood that is sufficient to the needs in this province because we don’t want that what we had collected would be wasted,” said Marcela Pagasartonga, PRC-Leyte Chapter administrator.
Pagasartonga added that all collected blood by their agency undergoes strict screening to know if they are contaminated with various diseases.
Among the diseases that can be accumulated through blood transfusion are malaria, hepatitis B and C, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and syphilis.
“That is why when we have walk in blood donors we asked them to undergo strict screening,” said Dr. Michieko Malou Modesto of PRC-Leyte Chapter.
“They need to answer questions honestly because if we test the blood and found it positive with contamination, we will quarantine it immediately,” she added.
The PRC officials, however, stressed that ever since they conducted mass blood donation and since the report of having HIV positive patient in the country in the mid-80s the region remains negative from such contamination.
Leyte “remains negative with blood contaminated with HIV,” Pagasartonga stressed.
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