Govt asked to equip regional blood bank laboratories

The seven regional blood bank laboratories in Uganda lack adequate hi-tech blood machines for the preparation of blood components, leading to wastage and inefficient use of blood, Dr. Dorothy Kyeyune, the director of Uganda Blood Transfusion Services (UBTS), has revealed.

The absence of equipment, such as the Centrifuge machine for the separation of blood components, including red blood cells, platelets, and plasma from each other, leads to blood wastage, she said on Thursday.

“Wastage refers to any blood component or product which is discarded rather than administered to a patient,” Kyeyune said while meeting MPs on Parliament’s public accounts committee (PAC).

UBTS managers were responding to the Auditor General’s queries for the year ending June 2021.

Kyeyune explained: “Our supplies of blood to hospitals and health center IVs are whole blood, leading to wastage of the precious God-given material.

“A patient may need one component of blood for treatment, the rest of the components, such as platelets and plasma, are not utilized by other patients, therefore, are wasted.
This also results in a shortage of blood in hospitals.

“If in 600mls of blood only 60mls is administered to one patient due to lack of machines to separate the other components, the rest of the blood will be wasted,” Kyeyune explained.

Each Centrifuge costs about sh400m and each regional blood bank needs the machine, “Government must avail funds to procure the blood screening equipment for the seven regional blood bank laboratories. We also need special incubators that store blood platelets safely.

Cancer patients, mostly under chemotherapy treatment, need platelets.

“Other equipments are tube sealer in blood transfusion to avoid blood contamination with viruses and each costs about sh25m,” Kyeyune said.

She was accompanied by Grace Otekat, UBTS’ principal laboratory technologist, and Edward Otheno, an economist, among others. UBTS, with its headquarters at Nakasero Blood Bank, has seven regional blood banks in Arua, FortPortal, Gulu, Kitovu, Mbale, Mbarara, and Nakasero.

It also has six blood collection centres in Hoima, Jinja, Kabale, Rukungiri, Lira and Soroti.

UBTS needs sh137b to collect 450,000 units of safe blood annually. Kyeyune said if UBTS is to meet the demand of 450,000 units of safe blood in Uganda, it needs sh137b.

In the 2022/2023 budget, UBTS has been allocated sh63b. Out of this, sh40b has been allocated to the National Medical Stores to procure UBTS’ medical supplies, while sh23b will be for operational costs, creating a shortfall of sh28b.

“In Uganda, it costs about $81 to make a unit of safe blood delivered to the hospital,” Kyeyune said.

Kyeyune said UBTS needs sh1.87b in the financial year 2022/2023 to procure additional six specialized vehicles for the collection and distribution of blood.

Fifty-five vehicles out of a fleet of 63 have exceeded their recommended five years of useful life.

Hi-tech blood screening machine Otekat revealed that Government is set to procure a Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) machine from the US this financial year (2022/2023).

Blood and plasma donations are tested on Roche NAT systems today. The machine will improve blood safety.

The NAT detects HIV within less than four days of its incubation period, instead of the current machine Architect that detects the HIV within 11 days.

Otekat said NAT is a highly sensitive method of testing blood that is used to detect Hepatitis B, and C virus (HCV), and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV-1) in blood, How Nucleic acid testing works Otekat said

“NAT is a molecular technique for screening blood donations to reduce the risk of transfusion-transmitted infections in the recipients, thus providing an additional layer of blood safety.”

“The period between initial infection and detection of antibodies is the window period from eleven to three days after infection of HIV,” Otekat said.