Sandeep Mishra
Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, June 13: While the World Health Organisation (WHO) is organising camps to thank blood donors on World Blood Donor’s Day June 14 with the theme being ‘Thank you for saving my life’, the state government here might just be adding to the number of AIDS patients in the state through its failure to adapt modern forms of blood screening technology, thus running the risk of accepting blood from HIV-infected donors.
The state government has been asked several times by health experts to introduce the Nucleic Acid Testing – Polymerase Chain Reaction (NAT-PCR) blood screening technology and phase out the Enzyme-linked Immune Sorbent Assay (ELISA) method, which is error-prone.
Experts say the advantage that NAT-PCR technology has over ELISA is in the reduction of window period of the disease, resulting in early detection of an infected donor’s blood. Window period is the duration during which infection is present in the donor’s blood, but cannot be detected by most screening techniques.
The state is collecting about 3.41 lakh blood units each year on an average, the figure based on only state-run and Red Cross-owned blood banks. According to a study, one in every five hundred units of whole blood collected from a donor can easily bypass the ELISA test even if it is infected by HIV or Hepatitis viruses.
By an extrapolation of this figure, one would arrive at the frightening conclusion that that the state government is possibly creating nearly 682 AIDS patients every year. According to the latest data released by Orissa State AIDS Control Society (OSACS), 529 persons have tested positive for HIV till February this year, while mortality due to AIDS in the state stood at 1,440 between 2002 and February 2015. However, it is not known how many of these patients were ‘gifted’ the HIV virus by the government.
Component separation
Component separation is very important in terms of blood donation for a patient. This issue is highly neglected when it comes to blood banks owned by the state government. Components of blood such as plasma, white blood cells and red blood cells play unique roles in a human body.
Component separation is important as it extracts only the required components before transfusing the blood into patients. In the absence of component separation, whole blood will be transfused resulting in unnecessary wastage of whole blood and its components – both in donors and patients.
In 2014, the state government procured a costly aphaeresis machine for component separation at Capital Hospital. The machine was procured for nearlyRs 25 lakh. Doctors and paramedics were trained to operate the machine, but the machine continues to gather dust at the hospital.
Capital Hospital blood bank officer Debashish Mishra said the machine was installed in August 2014. Two staff members from the blood bank were trained in Kolkata to operate the machine.
The aphaeresis machine was supposed to function within a few months of its installation; the process was delayed due to pending administrative approval, including licensing from the drug controller.
The Municipal Hospital – the second biggest government hospital in the city – is another example of how the component separation facility is being deprived to patients.
Many machines at the blood bank of this hospital are lying defunct. Chief medical officer (CMO) Nirod Sahu said some of the machines have been repaired while the machine for blood component separation is yet to be procured and installed.
“The construction of a separate blood bank in the hospital premises was finished recently. We have been procuring some machines but the component separation machine couldn’t be procured due to funding problems,” said Sahu.
State’s stance
Health officials here continue to sit for meetings where they hold discussions on increasing the amount of blood being stored at blood banks, but not enough attention is being given to improving screening technology, say experts. A meeting chaired in May by health minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak deliberated upon the need to increase the stock of blood for patients suffering from thalassemia and other related diseases, and modernisation of existing blood banks. Ironically, no discussions were held on the safety of the collected blood or the introduction of NAT-PCR screening system or component separation machines at major hospitals.
