Unsafe blood transfusion causes jaundice, syphilis to 100,000 per year

An estimated 100,000 people are being infected with hepatitis-B and syphilis every year due to unsafe blood transfusion both at public and private levels, according to findings of Bangladesh Health Watch 2009.
The health watch report, third of its kind first launched in 2006, reveals that among the numerous hospitals and clinics in the country, only four per cent implement government’s ‘safe blood transfusion programmes’.
It said the estimated annual demand for ‘whole blood’ varies from 250,000 to 350,000 bags of 350 to 450 milliliters per year and hardly half of those are screened as per mandatory government guidelines to test hepatitis B and C, syphilis and malarial parasites before any transfusion.
A recent study shows, the country still highly relies on professional blood donors, who meet 70 per cent of blood demands commercially, putting ailing people in a grave danger of infection from transfusion-transmissible infections that also include HIV/AIDS.
It says the over dependence on professional blood donors was, however, reduced to 60 per cent from 90 per cent in last decade, but it jumped again to 70 per cent in recent time due to lack of strict policy implementations and monitoring from law enforcing agencies.
It says at least one in three professional blood donors suffer from
different communicable diseases, which can be easily transmitted to ailing people through such unsafe transfusions.
The government safe blood transfusion programme, which started in 98 public hospitals in 2000 to promote voluntary blood donations instead of professional donors, seemed apparently in jeopardy due to non-compliance to regulations.
The health watch cited many factors for unsafe blood transfusion and these include ignorance, lack of public awareness, manpower shortages, lack of funding, inadequate lab facilities and screening products as well as the greed of dishonest private proprietors.
‘Common citizens and even the key staff members of the blood transfusion centres are not aware of the consequences of safe blood transfusion,’ read the health watch report, conduced over 42 facilities during first half of 2009.
It says four out of five such centres do not have any government license or accreditation for blood transfusion safety, although many of those are supervised by the government’s directorate general of health services.
The study, however, said there is no clarity as to whether the government facility require license or at least meet the minimum requirement of standards set by the relevant act.
The Bangladesh Health Watch is a multi-organisation civil society network formed in 2006 to establish a tradition of holding the state and the non- state actors accountable for their performance in health sector. The network has published two other reports on health sector performance in 2007 and 2008.

Courtesy of BSS via NewAgebd