Blood donation centers nationwide are boosting their efforts to encourage donations as Taiwan faces a shortage in blood supplies.
The nation is short on all types of blood, but supplies are especially low for types A and O, Wu Meng-ta (吳孟達), the head of the Taichung Blood Center’s donor recruitment section, said on Saturday.
The shortage was caused by fluctuating temperatures — which led to more people falling ill and being unable to donate — a decline in the number of donors aged 17 to 20 and increased demand, he said, adding that people with sleep deprivation cannot donate blood.
Photo: Wang Chin-yi, Taipei Times
Cold and rainy weather over the past few days has also discouraged donors, Wu said.
Donations from students usually drop as schools enter winter break, he said.
People are also unlikely to donate blood during next month’s nine-day Lunar New Year holiday, so the center is hosting blood drives to stockpile nine days’ worth of blood supplies before the holiday begins, Wu added.
The Hsinchu Blood Center supplies blood to hospitals in Taoyuan and Hsinchu City, and Hsinchu and Miaoli counties, the center said on Sunday.
However, three consecutive weeks of cold and damp weather in the region have led to a decline in supplies of all four blood types, it said.
As of Sunday, the four cities and counties each had less than a week’s supply of blood, it said.
The nation’s blood supplies decline between the beginning of winter and the Lunar New Year every year, the center said.
The Taiwan Blood Services Foundation said its donation centers would stay open for an extra hour every day until Feb. 3.
The Taitung Blood Station said it is working with local groups to host events every weekend this month to encourage donations.
It has also hired disabled people in a campaign to raise awareness about the importance of blood donations in local communities, it added.
Additional reporting by Wang Hsiu-ting
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS