KUALA LUMPUR: Two months into the COVID-19 endemic phase, the National Blood Centre has reported an encouraging increase in blood donation rates across Malaysia.

In conjunction with World Blood Donor Day yesterday, Deputy Director II Dr Nor Nazahah Mahmud said they saw an “overwhelming number” of 1,000 blood donations at the centre in Kuala Lumpur alone.

It previously recorded a significant drop in the number of donations when the pandemic hit, falling from 740,000 in 2019 to 650,000 in 2020. During this time, many elective surgeries that required blood for patients were also affected because of movement restrictions.

“The cancellation rate or postponement of surgical procedures on the clinical side during the pandemic was quite high. Now we have a backlog of surgical cases–around 60,000 nationwide,” said Dr Nazahah.

She noted that they had encountered several difficulties with blood collection over the past two years.

“This was due to the MCO (movement control order), the strict SOP (standard operating procedures) and most of the National Blood Centre staff working from home.

“We also faced issues such as addressing the public’s fear of coming forward to donate because of the high COVID-19 infection rate at that time. All these contributed to the low blood donation rate.”

According to Dr Nazahah, up to 2,000 units of blood need to be distributed to roughly 1,000 patients throughout the country. The centre itself requires between 500 to 600 daily units for blood recipients within the Klang Valley.

While they were currently able to keep up with hospital demand, she added that the centre was aiming to achieve a blood donation rate of 3% to 4% of the entire population.

“We are only at 2%, which is quite satisfactory, but all this work towards getting a better rate is something that is continuous. It includes campaign and promotional activities.”

She stressed that it was crucial for people to continue to come forward and donate.

“The thing about blood donation is that it has to be constant or continuous. It’s very important to have a consistent supply of safe blood so we can try to cater to patient’s requirements in the hospital."