Hanoi (VNA) – In the past, the shortage of blood donors and thedoubtful safety of blood and blood products made it a struggle to meet the demandsfor blood transfusions in medical emergencies and treatment. However, thesituation has largely improved in recent years.

A decade and a half ago, in 2003, the National Institute of Hematology andBlood Transfusion (NIHBT) received a meagre 32,134 units of blood (each unit350ml), 73 percent of which was from professional blood sellers. The nationalrate was roughly the same.

Inaddition, screening tests for hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV in the bloodused dated technology. Immunological safety in the blood units was virtuallynon-existent due to limitations in the machinery and technology and theprohibitive cost of importing foreign materials.

Theshortage of blood donors and the doubtful safety of blood and blood productsmade it a struggle to meet the demands for blood transfusions and bloodproducts for emergencies and treatment.

Newdevelopment

However,over a period of 12 years, from 2004 to 2015, NIHBT received some 1.5 millionunits of blood and produced 2.7 million units of blood products on anindustrial scale.

In2015 alone, the institute received 252,000 units of blood, eight times higherthan two years before. The most significant change was that nearly all of theblood received – 98.3 percent – came from voluntary blood donors, translatingto a jump of 71.3 percent compared to 2003. In 2016, the amount of blood unitsreceived rose 10.6 percent to 280,765 units.

Theblood received met the demands not only for patients in the cities and bigurban centres, but also for the more remote areas, upland regions, islands andborder regions. Awareness raising campaigns have been a central part of thesuccess, together with models like "Live Blood Bank" and "RareBlood Donors Clubs", to ensure a sustainable supply of blood donations.

“Hadit not been for the blood donation campaign, my wife wouldn’t have receivedenough blood and couldn’t have survived.” said Lau Nhia Cha, a farmer from theH’Mong ethnic group. His wife was the first patient to receive a successfulblood transfusion in a mountainous district in the northern province of ĐiệnBiên.

Enhancedsafety measures

NguyenAnh Tri, Director of the NIHBT, said the institute has researched and proposedto the Ministry of Health adopting the Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) technique to“better detect HIV, HCV, HBV in a shorter time.”

Hesaid implementation of NAT screening would “open a whole new chapter for bloodtransfusions, helping ensure a safe, timely, and sufficient supply.”

Amongthe most important technology the institute has recently mastered is theproduction, storage and supply of A Vietnamese red blood cell sample panel thataids in screening tests and identifying abnormal antibodies that attack redblood cells. The entire process can be done domestically, bringing down costs,expanding its use to more areas, and helping to ensure the immune safety ofblood used in transfusions.

PaulRogers, an expert from the World Health Organisation, two years ago, has laudedthe institute’s “major change in experience and capabilities” and theeffectiveness of its national blood donation programmes.-VNA