Did you know your pet could be a donor? Yes, you read it right. Every day, innumerable pets and stray animals lose their lives due to blood loss, be it due to a disease or an injury. The Pioneer’s Tejal Sinha speaks to Shiva Kumar, founder of Animal Bloodline, Hyderabad’s first-ever portal that aims to bridge the gap between donor animals and animals in need of blood while also raising awareness about animal blood transfusions.
A blood transfusion is a process that is provided to you through a narrow tube placed within a vein in your arm. This potentially life-saving procedure can help replace blood lost due to surgery or injury. While we do know that blood transfusion can be a life-saving procedure for humans, did you know that it can also save many pets?
Yes, you read it right! Every 3 out of 6 pets die every day due to heavy blood loss. In fact, statistics also reveal that one of the major reasons for the deaths of dogs was due to the loss of excess blood after injuries.
With an aim to raise awareness over animal blood transfusions, we have today with us Hyderabad-based Shiva Kumar, founder of the Animal Bloodline Portal, who is providing a nationwide list of animals registered as blood donors. Wanna know how he came up with such an idea? The young animal rescuer back then rescued an injured dog that was severely injured due to a road accident. As he took the dog to a vet, the operation turned out to be successful, but the dog couldn’t be saved.
Wondered how even after a successful operation? He said, “Within about 2 days of the operation, the dog passed away. When I asked the doctor, he said ‘It was due to blood loss’. And when I questioned him about why he didn’t inform me about it, he said, ‘Even if I had told you, you wouldn’t be able to do anything because there’s no blood bank’. That made me think about the issue, and thus came the idea to start Animal Bloodline.”
Now, to make it clear, Animal Bloodline is not a blood bank but a portal that collects details of animal blood donors across India. With a few to no blood banks in many cities, including Hyderabad, donating blood will cause no harm to your pet, and you could be instrumental in saving many furry lives.
Hey! Are you a pet parent? So you’ve got to pay attention to this. Your pet could be a donor and help save another pet’s life. Yes, all you have to do is register yourself on the Animal Bloodline portal. Once you register, your name will appear in the donors’ list for your particular city. If your pet requires a blood transfusion, head to their website — you will find the contact details of a list of donors that you can reach out to.
The pet parent needs to fill in his or her name and contact information and details about their pet, which include their health and breed. If any pet is found to be older than 8 years, the website will automatically hide the donor. Also, if the pet donated has had blood in less than three months or has had surgery recently, the website makes sure the donor isn’t visible to people in need.
Like how humans have different blood groups and even pets and other animals do. For instance, cats have blood groups A, B, and AB, while dogs have more than seven blood groups like DEA 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and DEA 4 (the universal donor).
However, the sad part of this is that “There are very few blood grouping manufacturing kits. Even if you want to know your pet’s blood group, the kits need to be imported from Europe, which is expensive. Due to this, almost 99.9% of pet parents are unaware of their pet’s blood group. It’s important that these kits are manufactured here as well, so during an emergency a pet can be saved. There are a lot of medical advancements for humans, but when it comes to animals, we are still in the stone age.”
In a further conversation with him, Shiva also revealed that people did call and inquire about this; however, rarely did people come forward to donate their pet’s blood.And, also, there’s a small revelation by the animal rescuer. Guess what? Without revealing many details, he shared that Hyderabad will soon have its first-ever animal blood bank.
Animal lives will only be saved if the number of donor registrations increases. Maybe for now your pet is not in need of blood donation, but a little four-legged friend might be in need. So as we have raised awareness about blood donation for humans, it’s time we take a small step and begin raising awareness about animal blood transfusion too.
