Tech News
Now virtual blood bank
rokto.org
Ridwan A Kabir
MEDICAL institutions in Bangladesh have always faced severe problems connecting blood seekers with donors. The blood bank of Dhaka has not always been able to provide adequate service during times of crisis. At such times, a virtual blood bank on the web has really made an effort to fill the gap. Founded by HRIDS (Human Right Information and Development Society), the Bangladesh Blood Donors (BBD), website, www.rokto.org, is a non-profit effort whose primary purpose is to establish a link between a blood donor and a seeker. An informative database of voluntary blood donors can be accessed by patients free of cost. Necessary contact information of the donor or the seeker is given with their consent. List of donors having a particular blood type can also be accessed. The site maintains restrictions on becoming a donor. It has a list of contagious blood-diseases and useful links on such topics. One can post a message on the site for any voluntary donor to find information on who is in need of his or her blood type. A link is entirely dedicated on this purpose with a list of patients who are in critical need of blood. Administrators of the site have maintained a compulsory user registration to keep track of the members. This requirement allows them to update the site database, where they have efficiently maintained every member under different categories such as location, blood-type, age, disease specifications and so on. "Member information and the databases are updated on a daily basis," said Dilir Akhtar Khan, one of the web administrators. He also said that sometimes user information may contain common mistakes. "Someone originally from Pabna living in Dhaka may write Pabna while filling in the location portion of the member-info page, but he is located at Dhaka, and a little concentration can avoid such mistakes," Dilir mentioned. The site also contains articles on blood groups. External links such as Banglapedia searches and online newspaper links can be quite useful at times. It also contains student resources on medical admission, a student doctor network, an online mathematics forum, an online Bengali dictionary, and a grammar section to facilitate English proficiency of interested individuals. The site administrators hope to enrich the database with one lakh active voluntary members by the year 2005. They also intend to conduct blood donation camps in academic institutions and educate the common people on unsafe blood transfusion and related diseases.
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