MANILA, Philippines—The Quezon City government will be conducting its regular blood-letting activity on Monday which, this time, aims to encourage people to donate blood for dengue patients in hospitals.
City health officer Dr. Antonieta Inumerable said the health department will set up booths for blood donations at the Quezon City Hall lobby on Monday, August 22.
“This is a monthly affair, we have been regularly doing this. But for the month of August, our bloodletting activity will focus on our dengue patients,” she told the Inquirer on Friday.
The activity will have the theme “Dugo Para sa Dengue” and aims to collect at least 100 bags to be deposited with the Lung Center of the Philippines’ blood bank.
This is the second bloodletting activity of the health department for this month alone.
Inumerable said they were only able to collect 63 bags during the first blood-letting affair the other week, thus the 100-bag target for Monday.
“We need to be able to sustain the need for blood in our hospitals, especially with our dengue patients confined,” she added.
She, however, assured that there is a steady supply of blood for patients in public hospitals even as dengue cases remain on the rise.
The Quezon City health department has recorded 3,447 reported cases of dengue from January to August 13 this year, with most of the cases coming from Barangays Bagbag, San Bartolome, Commonwealth and Batasan Hills.
The water-borne disease has claimed 29 lives so far in Quezon City, although Inumerable explained that some of the cases reported in Quezon City were non-residents.
She added that the number of cases in Quezon City is still manageable and that this is not enough to declare a dengue epidemic.
Inumerable said the health department considers the dengue incidents to be at the alert threshold level and that the situation is still under control.
To be declared an epidemic, Inumerable said reported cases of dengue must be clustered together in a specific area.