Ten percent of Ugandans who urgently need blood do not get it due to shortages in supplies, officials from the Uganda Blood Transfusion Services (UBTS) have revealed.
UBTS executive director Dr Dorothy Kyeyune Byabazaire told reporters on June 12 that they cannot meet the blood needs due to a lack of adequate donors and limited financing.
‘According to the World Health Organisation standards, a country is supposed to collect units of blood equivalent to one percent of its population, and here, since we are around 50 million Ugandans, we must collect 500,000 units of blood. Last year, we collected 439,000 units, which is below the standard. We also managed to meet 90 percent of the blood demand,’ she said.
Blood needs
Uganda’s national blood requirement is estimated at between 400,000 and 460,000 units annually, with hospitals needing approximately 1,000 to 1,200 units daily.
Statistics from the UBTS indicate that blood collection has risen in the last three years, from 313,659 units in 2023 to 350,000 units in 2024, and to 439,000 last year.
Dr Byabazaire noted that the current blood collection would be enough if the country were implementing effective primary health care and preventing the key conditions that drive blood demand, many of which are preventable in the first place.
For example, she said children suffering from severe anemia consume 60 percent of the blood, followed by postnatal risks (postpartum), accident victims, and then other terminal illnesses like cancer.
‘Diseases like malaria, which result in severe anemia among children, can be prevented; good antenatal care can prevent postnatal complications; if we have proper road safety mechanisms, road crashes will also reduce, and the blood will only be needed by a few people like cancer patients, among others,’ she said.
Severe anemia is often caused by malaria, sickle cell disease, or malnutrition. These disorders, health experts say, can be prevented. The 2024 World Health Organisation Malaria Report indicated Uganda is still a high-burden malaria country, with its entire population at risk of infection.
It revealed that 12.6 million Ugandans had been diagnosed with malaria, with at least 16,000 deaths reported, 75 percent of them children.
Related to sickle cell disease, statistics from the Ministry of Health indicate that Uganda registers an estimated 20,000 new cases annually, with 70 to 80 percent of affected children dying early, especially before the age of five. Malaria accounts for about 25 percent of deaths among children with sickle cell disease.
The 2025 report by UNICEF revealed that an estimated 268,000 children across Uganda suffered from severe malnutrition (wasting) in 2024.
Uganda recorded 26,044 road crashes in 2025, up from 25,107 in 2024, according to the Annual Crime Report launched in March this year.
With the report highlighting that fatalities stood at 5,144, the majority of road crash victims rushed to hospitals needed blood, according to officials.
Another key driver of blood demand is the risks faced by postnatal mothers, including hemorrhage, infection (sepsis), and major depression.
The maternal mortality ratio is roughly 189 deaths per 100,000 live births, with approximately 60 percent to 70 percent of maternal fatalities occurring in the postpartum period.
Ms Charlotte Kainerugaba, Uganda’s Postpartum Hemorrhage (PPH) Champion, emphasised the need for timely access to safe blood by mothers suffering postpartum hemorrhage, saying it can mean the difference between life and death during childbirth.
Handling of blood
Dr Byabazaire noted that UBTS needs a minimum of $100 (Shs380,000) to handle a single unit of blood from one vein to another.
‘Collecting blood requires items such as vacuum tubes, soda to give donors, employees, vehicles, among others. After that, blood needs to undergo testing where we need reagents, then it comes to storage and distribution. So when we sum it up, we need at least $100 to do all of it,’ she said.
New Alinity machine
Dr Byabazaire noted that the government has continued to partner with private firms to strengthen blood collection, testing and storage.
Under the Public-Private Partnership arrangement, Star Pharmaceuticals Ltd, in partnership with Abbott Diagnostics, supplied UBTS with the latest Alinity high-tech machine.
The machine, according to Mr Ani Prajith, the Chief Executive Officer of Star Pharmaceuticals Ltd, automatically screens large volumes of blood for infectious diseases like HIV, Hepatitis B and syphilis to improve blood safety.
He said: ‘Alinity machines have full automation, which means that you can load the samples and get more output with minimal human intervention. With the new machine, we can process more samples in a limited time, which means that whenever there is a high load, the output can be faster.’
Dr Steven Ssenyonga, a medical officer and research officer at UBTS, said that with the new machine, they are able to test between 800 and 1,000 samples in a single day.
‘We have realised that blood from educational institutions is safer, with limited cases of diseases compared to communities. Between 8am and 5pm, we can test between 800 and 1,000 samples because this machine can load reagents automatically, the sensitivity is much higher, so there is a real-time turnaround solution,’ he said.