90% blood should be screened: Memon

By Shahid Husain

KARACHI: The Director-General health, Sindh, Dr Husain Bux Memon, said here on Monday merely 20 percent blood is screened by blood banks in Pakistan, although at least 90 percent of the blood should be screened.

Speaking at an advocacy meeting on “Safe Blood Transfusion Services in Sindh,� organised here by the Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority and Husaini Blood Bank, he said we have been running blood transfusion service since the colonial period. He said Sindh took a lead in 1997 when it enacted the Safe Blood Transfusion Act. He said the Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority was established in 1998, but its actual activity started about one year ago. He said we have been very slow in implementing the law, adding the demand for blood in Pakistan was 3.5-4.0 million units per annum.

The director-general health, who was representing the adviser to the chief minister for health, Faisal Malik, and the newly-appointed secretary health, Prof Naushad Sheikh, who could not attend the important meeting due to their “busy schedule,� said HIV/AIDS was coming in a great way in Pakistan and it was high time to implement the Safe Blood Transfusion Act. He said the government had to subsidise the cost of blood transfusion in the public sector and it was all the more necessary to establish a public-private partnership.

The Chairman of Fatmid Foundation, Lt-Gen Moinuddin Haider (retd), said it was a good omen that public-private partnership was developing in the domain of blood transfusion. He was all praise for Sindh, which has taken a lead in implementing the Safe Blood Transfusion Act.

He said 28-29 associations are working in Pakistan for the eradication of thalassemia and a national body is in the making. He said Islam teaches ethics but it is unfortunate we do not adhere to it. He said most of the problems the people of Pakistan are facing today are due to misinterpretation of Islam.

Dr Farhana Memon, secretary of the Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority, said safe blood meant human blood that was healthy and free from human immuno deficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B and hepatitis C, viruses or other infective agents like malaria and trepenema, but hardly two percent of the population knew what was safe blood.

She said the Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority was established in 1998, but we have not calculated the cost of implementation of the Act as yet. She said we have to go for “alternative services� when we opt to close certain blood banks.

She said the latest data available with the Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority shows that there were 450 blood banks in the province. She said the Authority had received 152 applications for registration; the number of registered blood banks in Sindh is eight whereas notices have been issued to 49 blood banks and seven banks have been closed down.

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