KARACHI, Sept 21: Twenty-six blood banks in as many district hospitals across the province have been equipped with the wherewithal to screen blood for communicable diseases, including HIV, Hepatitis B and C, and Malaria.

The secretary of the Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority (SBTA), Dr Zahid Hasan Ansari, told Dawn that those district hospitals and other large hospitals in the public sector which were registered with the authority had recently been given the necessary equipment.

“This has been done under a project funded by the provincial government and aimed at improving quality control procedures, and procurement and transfusion of safe blood,” he said.

According to an estimate, the annual requirement of blood in Sindh is about 4.5 million bags. About 1.7 million bags are available from volunteer donors.

However, the issue of obtaining safe blood for patients and identification of carriers of communicable diseases have always been a source of concern for blood transfusion centres and medical practitioners.

Dr Ansari told Dawn that in addition to extension of facilities, focal persons had also been named in all the districts who would monitor the operation of the registered blood banks and submit a monthly report to the SBTA.

He claimed that the SBTA had also trained about 400 laboratory technicians, 200 medical officers and 100 pathologists across the province in safe blood transfusion procedures.

Dr Ansari said that Sindh Govt Qatar Hospital in Karachi had been provided with a cell separator, haematology analysers, among other gadgets. Refrigerators had also been supplied to various hospitals for safe storage of blood bags, he said.

He said that most of the screening facilities for the identification of carriers of communicable diseases.