Challenges in platelet inventory management at a tertiary care oncology center during the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic lockdown in India
Autor
Ojha, Shashank
Malind Gupta, Abhaykumar
Nagaraju, P.
Poojary, Minal
S.H., Sumathi
Institución
Resumen
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been declared a pandemic by the world health organization and
to limit the spread of the disease, many countries in the world, including India, had enforced a lockdown. Despite
no restriction over the platelet donation activities, plateletpheresis donors became apprehensive regarding the
possible risk of spread of the COVID-19 during the platelet donation and in the hospital premises. Many of them
started hesitating for platelet donations. With this, the blood center started having an acute shortage of platelets.
Various confidence-building steps were implemented by the blood center to promote voluntary plateletpheresis.
The blood center staff and individual donors were educated to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The donor
organizations and plateletpheresis donors were informed about the steps to be taken by the blood center during
the donation and necessary steps for the prevention of the possible spread of COVID-19. With the help of these
measures, the confidence of the individual platelet donors and the donor organizations was restored in the blood
center and regular plateletpheresis was continued. These measures may also be useful to other blood centers in
the COVID-19 pandemic and this experience may be useful if a similar pandemic lockdown happens in the
future.