If you approach your nearest blood bank for a unit of blood, make sure you replenish it, blood bank officials are saying.

As all voluntary blood donation camps were suspended from March 15 owing to social distancing over the Covid-19 risk, blood banks across the state are avoiding giving blood units without replacements in non-emergency cases.

Blood banks have appealed to relatives and friends replenish the units that people demand for their patients.

In Jamshedpur, voluntary outfits lined up blood donation camps till April-end but all are suspended due to the Covid-19 outbreak. But an official of Jamshedpur Blood Bank — the largest in Kolhan — said emergency cases such as accidents, childbirths, surgeries can’t wait. Therefore, people for non-emergency cases will only get blood when they bring at least one donor.

“We do have a risk of the stock getting exhausted. That’s why we have asked blood banks to ask people who seek blood to get friends and family to replenish. There are no voluntary camps now and we are working from home,” said Dr. C.P. Choudhary, deputy director (blood transfusion), Jharkhand State AIDS Control Society (JSACS).