The Kenya Tissue and Transplant Authority (KTTA) has registered an increase of 15 new blood banks to the current 45 up from 30 in the previous year.
KTTA Nairobi regional manager Festus Koech said that the improvement is supported by six functional Region Blood Testing Centers (RBTCs) that are present in the Lake region, Central Rift, North Rift, Nairobi and Eastern, Mount Kenya and Coast regions and other functional cold rooms in Nairobi, Nakuru, Kisii, Eldoret, Kisumu and Embu.
“Our storage capacity as a country has improved by around 123 percent from not only being able to store 24,000 units as of last year to the current 65,000 units as we speak,” said Koech.
He was addressing the press at Kencom Nairobi where KTTA held a week-long blood donation campaign to commemorate Mashujaa day.
He explained that the 5-day campaign that kicked off on Monday 17th was dubbed ‘I Am a Shujaa; I Saved a Life Blood Donation Campaign’ was meant to appreciate all blood donors across the country as heroes as the country marked Mashujaa celebrations.
Koech recognized their partners who are Kenya Red Cross Society, African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) and St Johns Ambulance Kenya for their continued support.
He thanked the new management at KTTA in partnership with the national government for its support in ensuring smooth blood collection across the country hence improving the status of blood banks in Kenya saying that KTTA has achieved a lot in the last two years with the help of the national government.
“We are happy because the government has just funded KTTA fully, we have simple commodities ranging from testing reagents and vehicles that have been procured to make sure that we increase the blood collection, this has resulted in an improvement of 60 percent and over,” said Koech.
Koech added that the County Government of Mandera will soon open a new satellite blood center that will help address blood services in the county.
The Communications Manager for KTTA Ted Mwai applauded Kenyans who turned out to donate blood.
“We have done our best to hype the event and the turnout we are getting for the Mashujaa week is good and very commendable,” said Mwai.
Also present at the presser was Aisha Dafalla who is the current record holder for the highest female blood donor in the country.
Dafalla has donated blood 73 times since 1981. She urged Kenyans to be regular donors.
By Emmanuel Kipkoech and Hellen Mwangi
