18 April 2004	Sunday	27 Safar 1425

PESHAWAR, April 17: Private blood banks have been selling unscreened blood to patients, which is a lethal practice, say haematologists.

"About a dozen private blood banks have been selling infected blood," said a haematologist at a city hospital.

According to him, these outlets, on the pretext of extending help to the poor and needy patients, also received heavy donations from multinational donor agencies and local philanthropists.

A poor man, whose daughter is suffering from thalassaemia, said he used to purchase one pint of blood from a privately-run blood bank at Rs500. According to him, those needing negative group of blood are required to pay Rs2,000 or more for a single pint of blood.

Haematologists informed that the NWFP assembly passed the Transfusion of Safe Blood Bill on Oct 7, 1999, to regulate the transfusion of safe blood and its products. The law was enforced on Oct 13, 1999, immediately after receiving the assent of the governor.

According to the law, a five-member Safe Blood Authority was supposed to be established under the director-general health services to ensure that blood banks were managed by qualified persons and to ensure bio-safety measures specified in the schedule issued by the World Health Organisation.

But the government failed to establish the body, giving a chance to privately-established blood banks to play havoc with the health of the people.

These blood banks had no mechanism for the proper maintenance of equipment and sufficient staff for receiving blood donations and selection, handling and safety of donors as prescribed by the law, a source said.

The law states that the blood banks should posses equipment for haemoglobin estimation, blood grouping, cross-matching, anti-bodies detection and screening infectious agents, including HIV/AIDS, hepatitis viruses, malaria and other communicable diseases.

But in the absence of any authority to oversee their operation, these outlets paid no attention to take care of these matters, the source added.

According to the WHO's guidelines, every blood bank should have one haematologist, microscope and centrifuge machine in addition to a trained technician and a refrigerator to store the collected blood at four degree Centigrade, said the source.

A haematologist said 25 per cent of the blood transfusion took place at private blood banks. He said that about 300 cases of HIV/AIDS had been detected from 1989 to 2003 through screening of blood at the state-run hospitals. Of these, he said, about 50 had turned out to be full-blown HIV/AIDS cases.

"There is no record available in the private blood banks because they are established just to make money," he alleged. He said that only the blood banks of 15 district headquarter hospitals of the 24 had recently been provided with the required equipment to test blood for HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.

Last year, the federal government had sanctioned Rs4.5million to provide equipment and staff to the hospitals, he said.

Shortage of blood at the city hospitals forced patients to contact the privately-owned blood banks for their requirements, which often added to their problems, but many of these cases went unreported, said doctors.