Villgro Africa has awarded $20,000 to Damu Sasa System Limited (DSL), which runs an innovative end-to-end blood services information management platform (Damu-Sasa), to enable them to enhance their contributions to mitigating the spread of COVID-19.
Damu-Sasa works across the entire blood ecosystem by helping hospitals source blood from donors and from each other while also supporting screening, preparation of blood products and inventory and transfusions management.
The Damu-Sasa system also helps mobilize donors, tracks their donations while giving them digital access to their donation history.
The DSL team works with hospitals and other multi-sectoral partners to increase voluntary donations from across the population, with the goal of delivering a sufficient supply of safe blood while improving tracking and reporting of utilization countrywide.
During 2020, Damu-Sasa has grown in presence from one hospital in one city to 132 hospitals across the country. The system has facilitated over 9,000 transfusions and has over 72,000 registered donors on its platform.
The DSL team looks to significantly grow this number through increasing Damu-Sasa presence in healthcare facilities as well as through their newly launched Damu Sasa android app, currently available on Google Playstore.
During COVID-19 the DSL team has provided online booking for blood donation appointments, personalized booking links for each hospital, evidence based educational articles, blood screening tracking capacity for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, and mobile text reminders of safe practices to blood donors.
“Villgro Africa is thrilled to support the work of the DSL team, they are a young and vibrant company who are committed to solving this real challenge. Working alongside Innovative Canadians for Change (ICChange), we look forward to being a part of their efforts in managing safe and efficient blood donations in Kenya, and doing so using a sustainable model,” says Rob Beyer, Cofounder & Executive Chair of Villgro Africa
In addition to the grant, Villgro Africa will offer technical assistance to enable the team to enhance their capacity with respect to COVID-19 blood management related capabilities while also supporting ongoing fundraising efforts.
According to Dr. Matunda Nyanchama, Chairman of DSL, “At Damu-Sasa, we are really excited with this partnership because it will help us address key concerns occasioned by the pandemic, improve potential blood donor numbers and hence help alleviate, to the degree possible, the perennial blood shortages.”
The Damu Sasa system enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of the blood ecosystem, helps minimize waste, and enhances blood availability, thereby leading to lives saved and improved health outcomes.
