KARACHI, Oct 26: Under a nationwide safe blood transfusion programme, Karachi will have one of the four ‘state-of-the-art regional blood transfusion centres’ planned for Sindh with the financial assistance of Germany by the end of 2013.
Serving as the blood procurement and distribution point, the Karachi centre, like the 12 other centres planned across the country, would be linked to at least six hospital-based blood banks (HBBBs).
The centre would mobilise voluntary blood donors and conduct processing, screening, testing, component preparation and storage of blood and ultimately feed the HBBBs linked to it.
This was stated by representatives of stakeholders responsible for the planning and execution of the blood transfusion programme, which envisaged a nationwide access to safe blood transfusion, at the groundbreaking of the regional blood transfusion centre in the Sindh Government Qatar Hospital, Orangi Town.
Sindh Health Secretary Rizwan Ahmad, along with the director of the KfW (a development bank of Germany) office in Pakistan, Dr Anna-Christine Janke, unveiled the plaque of the proposed centre at a hotel on Wednesday. Senior federal and provincial government officials and representatives of public and private blood banks in the province also attended the ceremony.
Dr Janke told the gathering that under a financing agreement with Pakistan a grant of fifteen million euros from the German government for an efficient blood transfusion service in Pakistan would be used exclusively for establishing the necessary network and for the construction of regional blood centres, provision of blood bank equipment and for financing accompanying operative training measures.
“A standard and high-quality blood transfusion in Pakistan and other developing countries was our dream,” she said, adding that such a transfusion system was necessary for the overall improvement of the health sector in Pakistan.
She further said that the interest shown by the Sindh government in the new transfusion programme was commendable as Sindh had become the second place where groundbreaking had been held for the establishment of a regional centre. A similar ceremony had been held in Gilgit-Baltistan recently, she added.
Health secretary Rizwan Ahmad praised the KfW and the government of Germany for supporting a very important blood safety project in Sindh and said that it would add to the government’s efforts to provide quality health services to its people.
Dr Hassan Abbas Zaheer, manager of the National Blood Transfusion Programme, said that in all 13 regional blood transfusion centres would be established in the country by 2013, and 78 HBBBs would be renovated and updated for their linking with the regional centres in the first phase of the national safe blood transfusion programme initiated with the funding of Germany.
The manager of the Sindh Blood Transfusion Programme, Dr Zahid Hasan Ansari, said the Sindh government identified emerging needs of blood safety in the province and it appreciated the KfW for developing a blood supply system comprising a network of hospital-based blood banks supported by regional blood transfusion centres.
In the first phase, Sindh would establish four regional centres — in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur and Nawabshah (Benazirabad).
However, he urged the KfW to provide funds also for the establishment four more RBTS in Sindh in view of its population, natural disaster events, outbreak of dengue and other blood-borne diseases in the province.
The additional secretary (development) of the Sindh health department, Dr Khalid Sheikh, told Dawn that all the four centres and the HBBBs would be ready by the end of 2013.
The Sindh government would be providing Rs251 million, including land for the regional centres, while the KfW would provide Rs325 million, he said, adding that the second groundbreaking was set to be held on Oct 27 in Hyderabad.
