India, the second most populous country in the world, started its mass vaccination campaign on January 16th, 2021. With the aim to vaccinate 1.3 billion people, this vaccination programme was dubbed as the world's largest vaccination drive. However, with depleted blood stores due to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown leading to reduced blood camps, the superposed regulations on blood donation deferral poses an impending risk of depletion of blood and its products. This will lead to the inability in meeting unpredictable patterns of demand in blood requirement post-pandemic. Hence to prevent avoidable risks of blood shortage in surgeries and lifesaving procedures, a secure storage system should be ensured.
Keywords: Blood donation; COVID-19; COVID-19, coronavirus disease 19; DGHS, directorate general of health services; FDA, food and drug administration; India; NBTC, national blood transfusion council; RT-PCR, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction; SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome -2; UK, United Kingdom; mRNA, messanger ribonucleic acid.
© 2022 The Authors.