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.
Subject(s)
Blood Donors , COVID-19 , Blood Banks , Blood Transfusion , COVID-19/epidemiology , Humans , Nigeria/epidemiology , Pandemics , Retrospective Studies , Tertiary Care CentersABSTRACT
Introduction: On the 27th of February 2020, Nigeria's Federal Ministry of Health officially announced the country's first case of COVID-19. As case numbers started to rise, what ensued was government-led interventions similar to those instituted across the world in the form of non-pharmaceutical interventions such as lockdowns, curfews, restrictions on mass gatherings and other physical distancing measures. These measures negatively affected blood donor mobilisation activities. Nigeria, like many other countries in sub-Saharan Africa prior to COVID-19 had encountered challenges with recruiting sufficient voluntary blood donors to meet the huge blood needs in the country, and so dire consequences of these infection prevention measures on national blood supplies were anticipated. A noticeable decline in blood donations and available safely screened blood for transfusions thus followed. We aimed to assess the blood service activities across seventeen (17) National Blood Transfusion Service centres in Nigeria, including numbers of blood donations, mobile blood drives, blood units screened, outcomes of screening, number of hospitals the NBTS provided services to and number of blood units discarded over the study period. Method: A retrospective descriptive study was conducted to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on blood services in seventeen (17) NBTS centres in Nigeria, comparing the months of January to December 2019 (pre-COVID-19) to the months of January to December 2020 (peri-COVID-19). Results: A 100% decline was observed in mobile blood donation drives in the first two months following government-imposed lockdowns, and numbers of all blood donations and voluntary blood donations declined by 9.8%. An 11.9% decline was also observed in the number of blood units screened;while the number of blood units that screened positive for transfusion-transmissible infections reduced by 28.6%. The number of discarded blood units declined by 3.1%;however, a 32.6% increase was observed in the number of hospitals that accessed blood for transfusion purposes from NBTS. Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic affected NBTS operations in Nigeria. However, by strengthening hospital linkages and employing innovative strategies, NBTS ensured continuity of operations, thereby significantly managing the challenges of COVID-19 to voluntary blood donor recruitment and the availability of safe blood for transfusion.