The national blood deficit is most pressing in places like Turkana, where malaria, anaemia and violence make heavy demands on transfusion services and doctors are pinning their hopes on innovation In his small cubicle in Lodwar County referral hospital in north-west Kenya, Edward Mutebi, the technician in charge of the hospitals blood bank, greets a nurse from the maternity ward. We want more blood, the nurse says. The previous allocation was not enough. Mutebi dashes into an adjacent room and hands the nurse a pack of blood from a freezer, leaving the paperwork for later. Back at the maternity ward, it is a race against time as doctors try to stabilise a mother who has lost too much blood during delivery. Her haemoglobin level is dangerously low.
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