Home » Blood Donor day: Women who let out blood regularly live longer than their Husbands – Unilag Professor

Blood Donor day: Women who let out blood regularly live longer than their Husbands – Unilag Professor

by Abbey Lily

Blood Donor day: Women who let out blood regularly live longer than their Husbands – Unilag Professor

Blood Donor day: Women who let out blood regularly live longer than their Husbands – Unilag Professor

-Odunayo Ajani

Blood Donor day: Women who let out blood regularly live longer than their Husbands – Unilag Professor

Blood Donor day: Women who let out blood regularly live longer than their Husbands – Unilag Professor

 

The authority and management of LUTH played host to medical practitioners, stakeholders in the health sector and members of the academia at this year’s World Blood donor day with the theme, “Give Blood, give now”. In an exclusive interview granted dailyFamily.ng, Professor Suleiman Akanmu, a professor of dermatology at the college of medicine of the University of Lagos and the Lagos University teaching hospital explains the importance of blood donation.
Good afternoon sir. Can we meet you, please?
My name is Suleiman Akanmu, a Professor of Dermatology and transfusion at the college of medicine of the University of Lagos and the Lagos University teaching hospital.
During your presentation, you did mention that Nigeria is not on that list, category a, b and c because of data. What is the problem with Nigeria and what makes it like that?
The problem is data collection. Information gathering is expensive. For you to collect data you have to invest in people who know the data you want to collect you have to invest in the instruments of data collection and today believe me nobody collects data on paper. You need to Invest on I.T equipment you need to invest in computers you need to train people on how to collect data and input it electronically. The level of practice even of governance in Nigeria still remains rudimentary.  So if you don’t invest in data collection there is no way you will be able to gather data. WHO collect information on transfusion medicine, they collect information, they collect information number one, on the type of donor you have in the country. They collect information on what we call Haemovigilance that is, when people donate blood, do they suffer from any form of complication that I didn’t have time to talk about. When people receive blood what are the common type of complaint people give?
Can you just tell us, sir, why you think people should donate blood? What are the advantages they will get?
I thought I explained this. You see if you donate blood regularly, not just one off and you meet what I define as returning blood donor, (an individual who has been donating blood at least two times every year for more than a period of ten years) there are a lot of medical advantages that accrue to you and top of that medical advantages is that, you are very unlikely to suffer from diseases related to iron overload. The point we are raising here is that when the iron is in excess in the human body it destroys the tissues and make it become fibrosis. What iron gives to the body, it remains there permanently. So the only way to let iron out is if you give blood. You see, women who menstruate are not strong and actually live healthier than their husband. They let iron out of their body and live healthier and longer than their husband because they don’t have an excess of iron in their body. So regular exercise of blood donation will help you let out the excess of iron in your body.
Sir, what is the process of obtaining blood here in Nigeria?
The process of Donor blood is like it is elsewhere. It is supposed to be voluntary blood donation. We are supposed to appeal to you that you to donate blood then we have told you that it is safe to donate blood to salvage a human life. But unfortunately, people don’t donate blood here in Nigeria voluntarily. It is only when their loved one is in need of blood that is when they will come forward.
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