Mobilise recovered COVID-19 patients to come forward for blood donation: Dr Harsh Vardhan

New Delhi: Union Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday (April 21) exhorted Red Cross warriors to keep sufficient bloodstock for transfusion by promoting voluntary blood donation and providing facilities of pick up and drop to donors. He also asked the Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) 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. 

Union Minister said that he had also written to state Health Ministers to promote voluntary blood donation.

Addressing Red Cross warriors from all over India at the Video conference held at Nirman Bhawanthem, Dr Harsh Vardhan exhorted 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. 

"The IRCS may like to take up this at the earliest so that the blood collected from the recovered patients could be used for transfusion for the benefit of Corona patients," he said while giving details of efforts made by the government to deal with COVID-19. 

He further said, “I may like to state that India was the first country in the world to respond to COVID-19 crisis without wasting any time. It was India that responded proactively to China’s first disclosure about Corona Virus to the world. On the very next day India initiated steps to monitor the situation and the first Joint Monitoring Group meeting was held. A Group of Ministers under my Chairmanship was also constituted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take important decisions as per the evolving situation. This was enough to set the tone for a highly spirited war against fatal virus across the country.” 

“India was the front runner in leading the onslaught against the COVID-19 pandemic and it took all the precautionary measures which could ideally be foreseen - like screening at Airports, Ports, Land borders with neighbouring countries, surveillance and contact tracing. He further stated that all International flights were instructed not to land at all airports in India with effect from early morning 23 March 2020," the minister said.

Union Minister further 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 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. He further informed that right now India has an ample number of COVID-19 dedicated hospitals, PPEs, N95 masks, Ventilators, and medicines. He said that we are at better footing as compared to the rest of the world."

“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, sanitizers, food, PPE kits, and N95 masks etc. for hospitals,” said the Union Minister while interacting with the Red Cross members across the country through Video Conferencing (VC) 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. The Secretary-General of IRCS RK Jain was present in person at the VC.