The Director-General of the National Blood Service Agency (NBSA), Prof. Saleh Yuguda, has urged residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and other Nigerians to embrace voluntary blood donation to address the country's blood shortage and save lives.
He said Nigeria collected only 24,000 to 25,000 units of blood in 2025, a figure far below the volume required to meet the transfusion needs of its population of more than 200 million.
Yuguda, who spoke through the Head of the Operations Centre, Dr. Aliyu Dahiru Waziri, made the call at a media roundtable on voluntary blood donation organised by the agency in collaboration with the International Society of Media in Public Health in Abuja.
He said at least two per cent of Nigeria's population needed to participate in blood donation to bridge the supply gap, improve access to safe blood and reduce the burden on patients' relatives, who are often compelled to source donors during medical emergencies.
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Yuguda said inadequate voluntary blood donation remained a major obstacle to building sufficient national blood reserves, despite efforts to improve collection and strengthen transfusion services.
"Although the agency has been doing quite a lot in the past few years to make sure this mandate is being met, we still have some challenges when it comes to the total units of blood we are able to generate," he said.
He added, "As of last year, if we only take the census in the National Blood Service, we will only be talking about 24,000 or 25,000 units of blood generally. But with a population of more than 200 million people, we should be talking about at least two per cent of our population giving blood. So there is a huge gap that we need to fill."
The NBSA director-general also disclosed that the agency was introducing a digital platform, the National Blood Management System, to monitor the collection, processing, distribution and use of donated blood.
According to him, the electronic system would enable the agency to trace every unit of blood from the donor to the recipient and identify the source of any complications arising from transfusion.
Waziri said the agency was also strengthening the registration and regulation of public and private blood banks to ensure compliance with approved standards.
He stressed that hospitals and blood transfusion establishments must register with the agency, adding that the NBSA was expanding its hospital linkage programme to improve blood distribution and prevent practices that could compromise the quality and safety of donated blood.
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Earlier, veteran journalist and founder of International Society of Media in Public Health, Moji Makanjuola, called on media organisations to intensify public enlightenment on voluntary blood donation, describing sustained advocacy as essential to addressing Nigeria's persistent blood shortage.
She urged journalists to educate Nigerians on the importance of donating blood, eligibility requirements, approved donation centres and the need to donate voluntarily without expecting financial rewards.
Makanjuola identified misinformation and cultural misconceptions as major barriers to voluntary blood donation, noting that some Nigerians wrongly believed the practice caused weakness, infertility, illness or permanent blood loss.
She urged journalists to counter such beliefs with accurate information from healthcare professionals and blood transfusion experts, while educating the public on donor screening and measures to prevent transfusion-transmissible infections.
The health communication advocate also called for improved healthcare infrastructure, particularly at the primary healthcare level, where inadequate electricity and blood storage facilities could undermine the availability of safe blood.
