T

he Jakarta Office of the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) reported on Friday that blood supplies in Jakarta had returned to normal after a shortage during the fasting month of Ramadhan.

Head of PMI Jakarta Salimar Salim said that the PMI currently stocked 1,700 bags of blood per day, which were enough for the city’s daily need of 800–1,000 bags each day, as more people had started to give their blood after the fasting month ended.

“This number is much better now than during Ramadhan, when we were only able to stock around 227 bags of blood per day because people were reluctant to donate blood during fasting,” he said as quoted by beritajakarta.com.

According to him, the stock will be supplied to hospitals in need of blood not only in Jakarta, but throughout Greater Jakarta, such as Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi.

To ensure sufficient blood supply throughout the year, PMI Jakarta had conducted massive blood donation programs at shopping centers, train stations, bus terminals, places of worship and other public places, he said.

Salimar, however, added that the current blood supplies were still far from the ideal number of 4,000 bags of blood, or four times that of daily demand.

He said that type-A and type-AB blood were the most difficult blood types to secure because only 6 percent of around 10 millions Jakartans had these blood types. Currently there was a community of people with type-A and type-AB blood who routinely gave their blood at the PMI every three months.