By: Ismael Kasooha
Kampala
When a person hears of the Agriculture expo one may think it’s only about agricultural promotion, but it wasn’t the case with this expo.
As farmers were being taken into the various ways of improving production, productivity and profitability others were donating blood to save a life.
Dr. Dorothy Byabazaire, the Director Uganda Blood Transfusion services (UBTS) said that at the Uganda Blood Transfusion Services stall, 1,321 people visited the 3 districts and of these 712 were able to donate blood to save lives.
“These units can save over 2,000 children after being processed and this comes at a time when students are going for holidays and we normally get blood shortages during holidays,” said Byabazaire.
She said that some 609 potential donors could not donate blood because of illnesses such as fever and 87 fell under this category.
Dr. Byabaziare said that some people were underweight while others were ineligible to donate blood.
“We need to talk about primary health care, especially on good feeding. Most people think that good feeding is all about eating meat or fish yet beans also are important in ensuring good health. So there should be a talk on healthy living,” said Byabazaire.
In a related development Dr. Omagino John the Executive Director Uganda Heart Institute said that 436 people reported to their stalls but 147 had hypertension implying that non-communicable diseases are no longer for urban areas only and 38 were initiated on treatment.
“Government needs to come up with a special policy that can help to address the increasing non-communicable diseases in the country both in urban and rural areas. There is a need for physical exercises and there should be walk-ways or cycling ways on roads so that we can fight these diseases,” said Omagino.
He expressed concern that in the current state of roads, people cannot safely walk on streets or even ride bicycles.
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