Blood stocks in Sichuan Province, the area hit hardest by Monday's magnitude 7.8 earthquake, can meet clinical demand, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said in a statement posted on its website on Friday.

More than 1.8 million milliliters of blood and 15 million milliliters of plasma had been transferred to Sichuan Province as of 4 p.m. Friday, the statement said.

Almost half of the blood, or 974,000 milliliters, had been used in medical treatment, it said. Reserves in local blood banks were enough to meet clinical use.

The ministry was ready to transfer more blood from other provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions as soon as medical relief requires.

As of 4 p.m. Friday, 319 medical experts from the MOH and provincial-level health departments had arrived in Sichuan Province to step up disease prevention measures.

The medical experts were divided into 26 teams to monitor sanitation in quake-affected cities, counties and townships including Wenchuan County, Aba prefecture, Mianyang City and Deyang City.

After a magnitude 7.8 earthquake rocked China's southwest Sichuan Province on Monday, the MOH appealed to the public to donate blood for the injured.

The result was queues of donors in front of blood collection facilities. The soaring number of donors forced blood collection centers in some cities, including Beijing, Wuhan, Shenzhen, to ask donors to register in advance.

(Xinhua News Agency May 16, 2008)