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The blood bank at Hospital Sultanah Aminah in Johor Baru.
THE cancellation of donation drives in compliance with the movement control order and the National Recovery Plan (NRP) this year could see a drop of between 20% to 30% of blood collected in Johor.
Dr Mohd Redzuan Abdullah, a transfusion medicine specialist at Hospital Sultanah Aminah (HSA) blood bank, said that about 70% to 80% of blood collection was obtained from donation drives held statewide.
“We expect to face more challenges collecting blood this year compared to last year, due to the higher number of Covid-19 cases.
“On top of that, with more government workers and private companies working from home, we expect to see a further reduction in blood donation drives held at their respective workplaces,” he told StarMetro in an interview at HSA.
JOHOR BARU: The Johor government hopes to start the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme from March 1, says R. Vidyananthan.
The State Health and Environment Committee chairman said that Johor received its first batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on Sunday (Feb 21) via the Johor Causeway.
“We hope to launch the first phase of the programme on March 1, focusing on frontliners from the Health Ministry as well as from other departments that are directly involved in controlling and preventing the spread of the disease on the ground.
“We expect to complete the first phase of the programme in April, ” he said in a statement Saturday (Feb 27).