The history of the Fatimid Foundation
How It Began: It all started in a small room on the sidewalk of Britto Road in Karachi, Pakistan. Since then, it has grown into the world's largest voluntary health care and blood transfusion service, giving thousands of bags of healthy, fully screened blood and blood products every month to thousands of patients, mostly children, with terrible blood disorders like thalassemia, hemophilia, and others.
Fatimid centers can be found in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Multan, Quetta, Hyderabad, Rashidabad, and Khairpur today.
Why it came into being:
Pakistan has a big problem with its health system right now: it doesn't have a National Blood Transfusion Service that is safe, efficient, and free of charge. A lot of mothers in Pakistan need blood transfusions for illnesses and deaths that could have been avoided. Many new centers have been built to help people who need a lot of blood for surgeries, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, kidney dialysis, kidney transplants, heart bypass surgery, Thalassemia, hemophilia, leukemia, and other conditions. This has made the need for blood and blood products even greater.
According to estimates, Pakistan needs more than 8,000 units of blood every day, but there isn't enough blood to go around. Potential blood donors have a pretty high rate of Hepatitis B and C viruses, which makes it harder to get safe blood and keep it available. It is thought that about ten million people in the country have the Hepatitis B and C viruses, though there haven't been formal studies in every area. The risk of spreading HIV makes things even more difficult, even in a place like Pakistan where the number of cases is low.
Since HIV and Hepatitis are transmitted through blood and blood products, there needs to be a sufficient supply of "Safe Blood" that is not affected for transfusions. The Fatimid Foundation is happy.
Email: info@fatimid.org
Phone: (021) 32254336