The dengue patients with negative blood groups (A-, B-, AB- and O-) are facing problems to find platelets for transfusion as the blood banks of the capital city are having almost no stock of these platelets. In dengue, the platelet count of the patients decreases alarmingly due to which these are needed to be transfused in the patient. The platelets are responsible for blood clotting and patients with low platelet count are in danger of internal hemorrhage which can be fatal.
On Saturday the family members of Raipur road resident Surendra Singh Rawat experienced the trauma of absence of platelets in stock of all the blood banks of the city. His son Jitendra Rawat said that the doctors of the Mahant Indiresh hospital suggested transfusion as platelet count of his father come below 20000. “The blood group of my father is B Negative; the blood bank of the hospital was having no stock of these platelets. I contacted the Doon hospital blood bank and the blood bank of IMA but there too the platelets matching the blood group of my father were not available. We tried to contact some donor with the blood group of my father but failed. Thankfully the platelet count of my father increased in the evening due to which the transfusion was not needed,” said Jitendra narrating his harrowing experience. The doctors informed that this case is not a singular case and patients with negative blood group do face such problem.
The senior pathologist and in charge of blood bank at Doon hospital, Dr S K Nautiyal told The Pioneer that as all the negative blood groups are rare there platelets too are not readily available. A blood bank separates the donated blood to three components, the Red Blood Corpuscles (RBC), Fresh Frozen Plasma (FFP) and platelets. The shelf life of RBCs is 35-42 days; the FFP is one year while the platelets have a shelf life of only three to five days which means that the fresh supplies of blood is needed to extract this component of blood.
When contacted the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Dehradun Dr S P Agarwal expressed his ignorance on the problem in availability of platelets of negative blood groups people. He claimed that he is regularly monitoring the availability of platelet in wake of dengue threat. The CMO however added that he would check the case of platelets of negative blood group. This year the number of dengue cases in the city has mounted to 205 which are higher than total reported cases last year.