KARACHI, Oct 25: The federal government has agreed in principle to include Sindh and Balochistan in a safe blood banking project to be initiated in collaboration with two German organisations this year.

It is worth recalling that the health ministry had signed an agreement with German Development Bank and German Technical Corporation in August 2007 to launch a safe blood banking project in Pakistan. Under the project, only Punjab and the NWFP were considered for intervention.

However, taking notice of the objection raised by the Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority (SBTA), the health ministry, after discussions with the foreign agencies which have agreed to increase the funding, has decided to include the other two provinces in the project as well. The project entails training of personnel and establishment of regional blood banks in the four provinces. Of the seven in Sindh, three will be set up in Karachi and the rest in Hyderabad, Larkana, Nawabshah and Sukkur. For this purpose, a team of experts is scheduled to visit Karachi in the first week of November to decide the location of these units. It would be pertinent to mention here that as many as twenty-six blood banks are already working in the public sector in Sindh.