Newly appointed officials at the National Blood Transfusion Centre have been challenged to get the activities of the structure up to speed in order to meet set targets.
Installing Professor Tetanyi Ekoe and Maina Djoulde into their functions, the Minister of Public Health Dr Malachie Manaouda told them to identify and integrate the temporary premises, proceed to the finalization of the organizational chart, prepare an action plan and conduct updated studies of the costs of setting up the National Blood Transfusion Center.
All these actions must be carried out urgently so that the centre is quickly functional and productive, the Public Health Minister stressed.
He went on to present the worrying situation of blood transfusion in Cameroon insisting the number of women who continue to lose their lives in childbirth for lack of blood is still significant; 40 percent of maternal deaths recorded each year. The annual blood product requirements are estimated at 400,000 bags of blood. However, collection capacities have been limited to 100,000 blood bags up to now; a gap of 300,000 blood bags to be filled.
The Public Health Minister equally insisted on the fact that in medical practice blood is a unique product and without substitutes to highlight the hope and expectations that are based on their people.
The he recalled the missions of this structure which are, among others: to ensure the availability and accessibility of blood products throughout the national territory; ensure promotion and social marketing in favor of ethical blood donation; to carry out the collection, biological qualification, preparation, conservation, storage and distribution of blood products; blood safety; training of technical staff in the transfusion chain; research in the field of blood transfusion.
It should be recalled that, the Chairman of the Management Committee and the Deputy Director General of the National Blood Transfusion Center (CNTS) were appointed by Presidential decrees N ° 2021/496 of August 30, 2021 and N ° 2021/495 of 30 August 2021.
