Islamabad: Claiming improvement in the blood safety standards particularly the blood screening’s in the country, Safe Blood Transfusion Programme national coordinator Prof. Hasan Abbas Zaheer has taken credit for the accomplishment.
During a World Hepatitis Day seminar here, Prof. Hasan highlighted the global, regional and national aspects of the hepatitis epidemic and the global strategy and response to halt and prevent its spread.
He said the international effort led by the World Health Organisation was supported by all member states, while Pakistan was also a signatory to international commitments made in the UN General Assembly in 2015 which adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which called on the international community to eliminate hepatitis.
“These commitments were articulated in the ‘Global Health Sector Strategy on Viral Hepatitis’ presented in the World Health Assembly in 2016.” The SBTP coordinator said one of the important modes of transmission of hepatitis in Pakistan was unsafe contaminated blood transfusions.
He said the SBTP was committed to making transfusions in Pakistan infection-free and strengthen the blood transfusion services and its efforts for the purpose included the development of a new nationwide blood transfusion infrastructure (construction of regional Blood Centres) with the support of the German government through KFW Development Bank grant, where blood transfusion services were being provided according to the international recommended guidelines adopting good laboratory practices for the screening of infections including hepatitis.
Prof. Hasan said other SBTP initiatives included developingtechnical manuals, guidelines, SoPs and training of the human resource which strengthen the blood screening systems. He said the programme had revived the blood regulatory authorities in all provinces and regions, which were strictly enforcing quality screening systems in the blood centres.
“The regulatory authorities have also managed to curb and significantly reduce the rampant use of substandard manual screening devices, a major source of spread of hepatitis in Pakistan. As a result of these concerted efforts by the SBTP, blood safety standards particularly the standard of blood screening has improved considerably,” he said.
The seminar also included some technical presentations by experts including Prof. Javaid Usman, Prof. Ayesha Junaid and Usman Waheed on screening for hepatitis, nucleic acid testing and blood screening guidelines and algorithms.
There was an extensive panel discussion session on blood safety and hepatitis spread. The discussion topics included availability of cheap substandard kits; screening technology options for hepatitis detection, rising prevalence of hepatitis among blood donors, and high hepatitis B and C prevalence among thalassaemia patients.
The panel discussion provided an excellent opportunity for an interactive session where the participants engaged in a knowledgeable debate with eminent experts about hepatitis prevention.
The World Hepatitis Day is celebrated all over the world on July 28 to highlight the global spread of hepatitis. It is also celebrated in Pakistan widely by the stakeholders as Pakistan is among high burden countries for hepatitis.
The seminar was attended by the representatives of blood banks, blood donor organizations, NGOs, university and college students and other partners.