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Levels of blood supplies at the Community Blood Center of the Ozarks are lower than they’ve been in several months. KSMU’s Michele Skalicky has more…

The blood supply for 37 area hospitals remains low this week. The CBCO issued a code yellow alert for all blood types last week when levels of O negative and B negative fell to around 20% of normal and type B positive was at around 10% of normal.
Chris Pilgrim is spokesman for the CBCO…

"We're doing alright. We're holding our own, but we're certainly not increasing our reserves very much anymore, so we need to get a few days of where we collect over our daily needs to get back to normal."

Currently, Pilgram says blood supplies are at 50% or less of the optimum reserves. Type B negative is at 20% of what should be available and B positive is now at around 30% of what is needed…

"While these reserves are ok for a day or two, a code yellow alert means that there's less than a 2-day supply, and that is certainly the case in most of our types--in fact, all types except for O positive, which we're doing ok on right now, but since it's the most common blood type, we need that the most, so we're in a code yellow alert right now for all blood types. Any donation is appreciated."

Pilgram partially blames the winter weather, which forced high school blood drives to be cancelled. About 30% of the CBCO’s blood donations comes from high school students.
He says some big drives are planned in the next couple of weeks, but help is needed this week to make sure blood supplies don’t dwindle further.
To find out how to donate, visit cbco.org or call 227-5000.
For KSMU News, I’m Michele Skalicky.
 

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