Middle East & Africa | Blood money

Kenya’s blood shortage and the kicking of an aid addiction

When America cut its funding, Kenya’s blood service ran dry

A health worker from the Kenya National Blood Transfusion Service (KNBTS), prepares to draw blood from a volunteer during the weeklong blood drive, in Nairobi, on September 11, 2019. - The weeklong drive run from September 11 to 13 at the Kenya Archives grounds in Nairobi.The government launched a blood donation drive to aimed at increasing blood bank in order to be used to saving lives and incase of emergencies. (Photo by SIMON MAINA / AFP) (Photo by SIMON MAINA/AFP via Getty Images)
Image: AFP
|NAIROBI

Tragedy led Mariam Mwinyiusi to open a vein. Last year her friend died when she could not get a blood transfusion in time. “I can prevent it from happening to another person,” she says at a blood bank in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital.

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “There will be blood”

From the January 14th 2023 edition

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