Sandeep Mishra
Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Feb 20: Blood banks are supposed to be lifesavers – providing units of whole blood or blood components during medical emergencies. But what if those very blood banks suck the life out of patients by giving them blood infected with HIV or Hepatitis?
There is a good chance this nightmare might happen at any of the blood banks in the state, due to the state government’s dilly-dallying over implementing a safe and modern blood screening technology called Nucleic Acid Testing-Polymerase Chain Reaction (NAT-PCR) in blood banks across the state.
The delay in implementation is tantamount to contempt of court, as the High Court had in the past ordered the implementation of the NAT-PCR in the state to prevent patients from accidentally contracting the dreaded HIV and Hepatitis diseases through infected blood.
Orissa uses the ELISA method to detect infected blood, but according to a study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), there is a one-in-500 chance that an HIV+ case will be incorrectly diagnosed as HIV negative, thereby greatly increasing the risk of infected blood being stored at blood banks.
What this means is one normal patient out of 500 will be transfused with infected blood, leaving him/her battling the dreaded disease for life.
Orissa collects about 3 lakh units of whole blood. Going by ELISA’s error margin, a simple calculation shows around 600 normal persons are transfused either with HIV or Hepatitis-infected blood every year.
Bearing testament to this is the 2007 case of a newborn girl being diagnosed with HIV – she was born to HIV negative parents. The only possible explanation for the infant contracting HIV can be transfusion of infected blood, as she had to undergo two operations.
In another case, a pregnant lady was given HIV-infected blood and the same was detected after childbirth.
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed in the High Court in 2011, following which it directed the government to equip blood banks with NAT-PCR.
A committee was formed by the state government that studied NAT installations in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka. The report sought immediate installation of the new blood screening technology across blood banks in the state. A proposal was prepared and the health department had also cleared it.
Despite this, and several assurances by the health minister at public events since September 2012, no progress has been made on this front.
The state government had promised installation of NAT-PCR technology in the three medical colleges in the state and at Capital Hospital in the city, but the promises are yet to be kept.
