Dengue patients helpless as Lahore runs out of platelets

Platelets are blood cells that are given to dengue patients to prop up their declining immunity against the viral attack.The number of dengue patients has reached 2000 and increasing as the mosquitoes survive the spurious insecticides sprayed by the authorities concerned.Once a patient contracts the disease, the count of platelets, which help in blood coagulation, starts decreasing with high temperature.Experts have suggested two ways to inject platelets in the patient suffering from fever.Normally 5000 platelets are extracted from a bagful of blood. However, more than 25,000 platelets may be obtained if a special method is adopted.Similarly, under the same method, the blood donor may bleed again in three days. Nonetheless, people are facing problems in such extraction of platelets owing to lack of facilities.Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif has ordered to purchase the machines for this procedure on war footings but his order was not followed in spirit as none of the hospitals has purchased the machines despite being cheap.