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Kampala, Uganda | Julius Businge | The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) has promised to give more support to the National Blood Bank in terms of more blood that it wants to deal with the shortage.
In a statement shared with The Independent, the Fund said that, as part of its corporate social responsibility function, it is committed to saving lives of people in addition to conducting its core role of collecting pension money from its members.
Statistics from World Health Organisation (WHO) indicates that Uganda has an annual demand of about 340,000 units of blood, but falls short by over 100,000 units.
Last month, the NSSF conducted a 6-day blood drive and collected 8887 units of blood across the country. It had earlier said 10, 000 units was the target for the January 2020 campaign.
During the campaign, the blood donation centers around Kampala collected 4,031 units in total while the upcountry donation points managed to collect 4,856 units throughout the six-day campaign.
The top three upcountry districts that collected the highest units of blood were Mbarara (659 units), Masaka (535) and Hoima (380). Last year the Fund collected 6, 000 units of blood across the country.
The Fund’s Managing Director Richard Byarugaba said that the units of blood that were collected would relieve the Uganda Blood Bank – the official blood supplier of blood in Uganda– on the current blood shortage. The blood bank needs 1, 250 units of blood daily to meet the demand.
