As Africa marks World Blood Donor Day on June 14, 2025, Allan Pamba, executive vice president for Diagnostics, Africa at Roche Diagnostics is calling for urgent investment in blood systems and diagnostics to prevent avoidable deaths.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the average blood donation rate in high-income countries is 31.5 donations per 1,000 people. In low-income countries — many of them in Africa — that number drops to just 5.0 per 1,000.
The disparity means patients in trauma units, maternity wards, and cancer centres are regularly unable to receive life-saving transfusions.
“This is not just a medical supply issue — it’s a systemic public health failure,” said Pamba. “Every day, people die not because we lack treatments, but because we lack safe, screened blood when it’s needed most.”
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Blood transfusions are critical in treating complications from childbirth, injuries, surgeries, and diseases such as leukaemia or sickle cell anaemia. But supply gaps are only part of the problem. Ensuring the safety of the blood is just as important and equally neglected.
“Screening for infections like HIV, Hepatitis B and C, syphilis, malaria, and other diseases is essential,” Pamba said. “Diagnostics play a transformative role, enabling health systems to screen effectively, track reliably and act quickly.”
He added that many African countries still lack the infrastructure, trained personnel, and supply chain coordination to manage blood collection and screening at scale. The result: millions remain at risk of both blood shortages and unsafe transfusions.
Some countries, however, are starting to innovate. Rwanda has pioneered the use of drones to deliver screened blood to remote clinics and South Africa’s National Blood Service (SANBS) is widely seen as a model of excellence in blood screening.
Kenya is integrating diagnostics into its Universal Health Coverage (UHC) strategy, setting the stage for more cost-effective deployment of limited health budgets.
“These are encouraging examples, but they remain isolated. We need scale, consistency, and equity across the continent,” said Pamba.
The issue is further complicated by a changing global health funding landscape. Traditional donor support is shrinking or being reallocated in the post-pandemic period.
Experts warn that unless African governments begin investing in domestic health resilience, including safe blood systems, the continent will be ill-prepared for future health emergencies.
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“Increasing domestic health financing is no longer a choice, it’s a necessity,” said Pamba. “If we don’t act now, we’ll be even more vulnerable in the next crisis than we were in the last.”
Investing in diagnostics and safe blood infrastructure, he argues, is a cost-effective way to reduce long-term health system burdens. Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) and serology-based screening are examples of scalable technologies that could dramatically improve patient outcomes, but remain underutilised across much of the region.
As the world commemorates World Blood Donor Day, Pamba is urging African governments, private sector partners, and health NGOs to take a holistic view of blood security — from donor recruitment to safe delivery.
“We must stop treating this as a peripheral issue,” he said. “Blood safety is a core indicator of a functioning health system. If we get this right, we save lives — every single day.”
