ABSTRACT
This research is important because milk production is considered as an activity of nutritional, social and economic importance in Kosovo. Cow's milk dominates the production of raw milk in Kosovo. Dairy cows (about 132,500 heads) produce 277,599 tons of milk. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of Covid-19 on the performance of cow milk producers in Kosovo. It was used descriptive and quantitative survey. The random sampling technique was used to select respondents from a 242 dairy farms in the seven regions of Kosovo (Gjilan, Prishtina, Ferizaj, Peja, Gjakova, Prizren, and Mitrovica). Interviews have included the farms with the capacity of 5-120 dairy cows. Data on milk production, sales and farm incomes for each farm were recorded during the period of January-April 2021 and the comparison was made for a calendar year with that of 2019/2020. The average milk produced by farmers per year was 73052.94 liters in 2019, and it decreased to 71255.27 liters in 2020. In 2020, 93.1% of farmers said they have not been able to sell all the milk they produced, on average the surveyed farms could not sell milk at all in the amount of 12503.43 liters per year in 2020, and this represents an increase of 275 times compared to the amount of the previous year where there was only 45.38 liters per year of unsold milk destined for the market. The average farm revenues from milk were € 13892.37 in 2020, while in 2019 it was considerably higher, with an average of 19881.49 € per farm. Farmers reported that the restrictive measures taken as a result of Covid-19 have affected milk production negatively in terms of sales, revenues and returns. Advisory services should sensitize farmers to farm diversification so that losses from such situations as pandemics are kept to a minimum. © 2023, Consulting and Training Center - KEY. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic affected blood supplies globally. Mobile blood drive campaigns halted, and voluntary blood donations reduced, challenging available blood supplies. Furthermore, fears of virus transmission led to deferrals of elective surgeries and non-urgent clinical procedures with noticeable declines in blood donations and transfusions. Aims: We aimed to assess the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the number of blood donations and transfusions across the country by blood product type across various hospital departments. Materials and Methods: A retrospective descriptive study was conducted to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on blood services in 34 tertiary hospitals in Nigeria, comparing January to July 2019 (pre-COVID-19) to January to July 2020 (peri-COVID-19). Data were collected from the country's web-based software District Health Information System, Version 2 (DHIS2). Results: A 17.1% decline in numbers of blood donations was observed over the study period, especially in April 2020 (44.3%), a 21.7% decline in numbers of blood transfusions, especially in April 2020 (44.3%). The largest declines in transfusion were noted in surgery department for fresh frozen plasma (80.1%) [p = 0.012] and accident and emergency department transfusion of platelets (78.3%) [p = 0.005]. The least decline of statistical significance was observed in internal medicine transfusions of whole blood (19.6%) [p = 0.011]. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected the numbers of blood donations and transfusions in Nigeria. Strengthening blood services to provide various blood components and secure safe blood supplies during public health emergencies is therefore critical.