By JOAN Barsulai
It’s 2pm on a Monday, and a young man in his mid-20s is seated in his office attending to clients. A few minutes into the meeting, his secretary interrupts with an urgent message: A children’s hospital has just called asking for blood to save a young leukemia patient in need of blood from 36 donors.
The meeting is put on hold as Evans Muriu scans through his online blood donor database, Wanadamu, and immediately sends an alert to all the blood donors with the matching blood group that is required.
Online blood bank
SAVING A LIFE IS JUST A CLICK AWAY: Evans Muriu’s online blood bank is eight months old and is already creating an impact by saving lives. [PHOTOS: JOAN BARSULAI AND COURTESY /STANDARD] |
Muriu started the Wanadamu initiative, an online blood bank, last July, to help save lives by availing blood to those in need immediately. The astute businessman and philanthropist picked the name Wanadamu, which in Kiswahili means human beings, but in this context means ‘we have blood’.
"I wanted to ensure no life was lost before its time because a patient couldn’t get any or enough blood in time."
So on July 4, last year, Wanadamu went live. By July 8, the team got their first appeal for AB+ blood from a patient in a hospital in Parklands, Nairobi.
Luckily, their database already had an AB+ donor. Once contacted, he rushed to the hospital and donated the required blood — and saved a life. For Wanadamu, it was a historic moment, for they had successfully attended to the first appeal.
As days went by, more and more appeals came through as the number of willing donors signed up at an amazing rate.
On July 26, another appeal for a patient in critical condition in another Nairobi hospital came through. Within three hours, the hospital had received more than the quantity of blood needed to save the patient. Yet donors kept streaming in.
Sufficient blood
The hospital had to turn them down and even contacted the Wanadamu team to tell them to stop sending more people, since the blood received was sufficient.
Muriu says the most memorable appeal was sent out by a children’s hospital last September, asking for blood from 25 donors for a baby in a critical situation. Being a new outfit, Muriu panicked as he was unsure that his team would be able to work around that number.
He need not have worried for, as soon as he contacted his donors, they went to the hospital and gave all the blood needed, and four days later, the baby was on his way to full recovery.
As of last February, Wanadamu had successfully responded to 131 appeals from 24 hospitals around the country.
More than 4,500 Kenyans have signed up as willing donors, to be contacted whenever blood donation is needed. Apart from Nairobi, there are members from Eldoret, Nakuru, Kisumu, Nyeri, Meru, and Nyahururu. Those near a facility are the ones contacted to donate. This keeps cost of donating blood at the minimum.
Although the online blood bank is working fast, the country’s blood banks are nearly empty. Yet there are willing donors out there who crave a chance to give blood.
Willing donors are encouraged to sign up on the online database free of charge.
"It’s the smallest things that usually create the biggest impact. You don’t need to be rich to be generous."
