ET HealthWorld: Blood Adequacy, Safety Are Non-Negotiable
India's Blood Adequacy, Safety, And Sustainability Needs To Be Non-negotiable
ET HealthWorld, Suryaprabha Sadasivan, 20 May 2020
(Image courtesy of ET HealthWorld)
Did you know that in absolute terms, India has the largest shortage of blood globally? A global study published in The Lancet in October 2019, estimates that India has the largest absolute shortage of blood units among all countries in the world. This study claims the shortage to be close to almost 41 million units in 2017, much higher than the official shortfall statistics, estimated at 1.9 million units of blood. The shortage of blood is exacerbated by the fact that almost 10-11% of collected blood is wasted each year, which means India cumulatively wasted over 3.4 million blood units from 2014 to 2017, even by conservative estimates.
India’s huge trauma and surgical burden, high prevalence of blood disorders and communicable diseases combined with excessive Postpartum Hemorrhage (PPH) related death, means that a well-functioning blood system should be an absolute necessity and a top priority of the health policy. This kind of health burden effectively implies that access to timely delivery of care, safe and adequate blood for transfusion should not remain unaddressed. Besides adequacy, safety of the blood has to be non-negotiable. According to official data, over 2234 people reported that they were infected with HIV from contaminated blood transfusions between October 2014, and March 2016 making a zero-risk blood supply still seem like a distant reality.
