Zimbabwe: Operations Drive Out Rubbish and Restore Order

[FHwku]

BBC article

Zimbabwe's blood bank 'runs dry'

Zimbabwe's blood bank has "virtually run dry" due to the recent slum clearances, a state newspaper says.

The National Blood Transfusion Service said regular donors had moved away and were unreachable after their houses were demolished in urban slum areas.

The school holidays were also blamed for the shortage as children make up 75% of those who donate blood.

Some 700,000 people were left without homes or jobs in Operations Drive Out Rubbish and Restore Order, the UN says.

Transport costs

Many of those made homeless have been forced to return to their villages in the rural areas.

There has always been a group of adults who just do not want to risk testing positive for the unknown
Emmanuel Masvikeni
National Blood Transfusion Service spokesman

"Some of our regular donors who due to Operation Restore Order moved to other places without leaving forwarding addresses, meaning we have no way of following them up," Emmanuel Masvikeni, a spokesman for the transfusion service told The Herald newspaper.

The national blood bank has only 650 units instead of the required 3,000, which the newspaper described as "worrying".

High transport cost also stopped people coming to clinics to donate blood, Mr Masvikeni said.

Added to this was the usual hesitance of people who did not want to give blood because they did not want to find out their HIV status.

"There has always been a group of adults who just do not want to risk testing positive for the unknown," he said.

But with the school term beginning, the transfusion service hoped it would be able to replenish it stocks soon.

The government said the demolitions would reduce criminality and the black market.

But they were condemned by the UN.