OFFTRACK: LUCKNOW, UTTAR PRADESH

A man's 25-year mission is to spread awareness about blood donation

Hungry mouths, frail bodies and serpentine queues. The picture that Keshav Chandra had chanced upon when he passed by a blood bank in Delhi as a youth is still imprinted in his mind. While others would have turned away, Chandra had paused and marvelled at the unpretentious magnanimity of these impoverished men. They might have been allowing themselves to be bled for money-it fetched them Rs 50-but that wasn't important. What was significant was that every ounce they shed could make a critical difference to someone, somewhere tottering between life and death. The thought had touched Chandra's heart and signalled a mission that is continuing throughout his life.

Today, as executive director at the Research Development and Standard Organisation, Lucknow, the 48-year-old railway officer has crossed many professional milestones but the most significant has been the completion of 25 years of his mission. From the first time in 1976, when he walked into the All India Institute of Medical Sciences at Delhi, Chandra has been voluntarily donating blood, sometimes twice, even thrice a year, having marked 50 such occasions in a quarter century. And he continues to do so.

Chandra's passion stems from his concern about the dearth of voluntary donors in government hospitals. He says the problem lies in the fact that collection of blood through voluntary donations constitutes a minuscule percentage of the total requirement in the country. This, he adds, is a fallout of the widespread misconception, even in the most educated of households, that donating blood weakens an individual. "Generally, people fear loss of strength, insomnia or other physical and mental disorders," he says, citing the case of a housewife who preferred to buy a stranger's blood from a private bank rather than let her husband donate his when their son required a transfusion after an accident. The woman believed that giving blood would make her husband impotent.

Drawing a lesson from the incident, Chandra launched the Donate Once In A Lifetime campaign (DOIALT) last year to create greater awareness about blood donation. But first he had to get his own facts right. So he began to gather data on the demand and availability of blood in the country and the problems the banks faced. He discussed the matter with people who worked in the field, including World Health Organisation (WHO) officials.

The statistics, he found, didn't make for a healthy graph. Quoting WHO, Chandra says the total collection of blood worldwide is seven million units per year. Sixty per cent of this is used by developed countries, which comprise only 17 per cent of the world's population. This means the remaining 83 per cent of the people spread across the developing nations have access to just 40 per cent of the blood pool. Worse, while the advanced nations get most of the voluntary donations, three out of five cases in the Third World have to make do with blood that comes from paid or replacement donors. And in 43 per cent of the cases, the blood is not tested for transmissible diseases.

Figures at his fingertips, Chandra began to convince healthy individuals to do their bit to overcome the country's shortage of the crucial body fluid. "If every healthy Indian donates blood once in his lifetime, our requirement for blood will be fully met," Chandra states, adding that the national average yearly requirement is one unit of blood for every 100 persons. At present, although this requirement is being met, there are doubts about its purity as half of it is obtained from professional donors. Estimates suggest that's the trend in most Third World countries, with 30 per cent coming from replacement, and 20 per cent from voluntary donors.

Chandra is in touch with health authorities in every state, and has sought government support for his campaign. To allay fears about the "ill effects" of donating blood, he points to the fact that despite having done it 50 times, he has no major ailment. Chandra has no illusions. He knows convincing people will take time. He talks of how his mother initially had reservations about his donating blood. But she came around when he explained the scarcity of pure blood. A scarcity he is determined to overcome.