KARACHI, Feb 9: The Sindh health department is soon going to launch a Rs300 million project for safe blood transfusion services.

Official sources said that the project, being funded by the federal government, the government of Sindh, the World Bank and other donor agencies, would span over five years.

The project is aimed at providing safe and continuous supply of blood through public sector hospitals, including 29 blood banks in the public sector.

It also seeks to regulate safe blood transfusion in the public and private sectors through the Safe Blood Transfusion Authority Sindh, in operation since 1998.

It may be mentioned here that over 0.1 million able-bodied volunteer donors were screened so far for HIV and hepatitis-B virus through the 29 blood bodies in the public sector. Four cases were found positive for HIV, while 3714 cases were found HBV positive. These figures do not include the screening by 35 known blood banks.

The sources informed that the estimated blood requirement as per the WHO formula (census-1998) is 599800 units per annum with an annual growth of 2.7 per cent.

The public has been warned that blood and its products should be properly and duly screened before its transfusion into their dear ones as professional donors are mostly HIV-HBV carriers.—APP