Germany appreciates govt’s commitment to better access to safe blood

Islamabad: A representative of German government and Pakistan-Afghanistan director of KFW, a German government-owned development bank, Christian Kraemer praised the government’s commitment to improve access to safe blood.

“We hope that the German government funded blood centres will herald a new era of blood safety in Pakistan. The Safe Blood Transfusion Project is a success story and the federal and provincial teams deserve praise for their untiring efforts in this respect,” he told the ground breaking ceremony of the Abbottabad Regional Blood Centre here on Friday.

Ayub Medical College board of governors chairman M Javed Panni performed the ground breaking. Noted among those in attendance were KfW country director Wolfgang Moellers, National Coordinator of the Safe Blood Transfusion Programme Professor Hasan Abbas Zaheer, KfW-German Development Bank’s Dr. Masuma Zaidi, EPOS team leader Zahid Mahmood, programme’s provincial manager Professor Tahir Khan, AMC Dean Prof Azizun Nisa, faculty members, students and stakeholders.

The Abbottabad centre is among the 15 Regional Blood Centres that are being constructed/upgraded by the German Government through KFW under the SBT project. In addition, 24 linked hospital blood banks will also be equipped through KFW worth Rs1.1 billion (Euros 10 million) under Phase-II. The Abbottabad Center would be constructed and equipped through the German grant worth Rs19 crore (Euro 1.7 million). The funding for KPK in Phase-II is Rs38 crore (Euros 3.4 million).

Earlier in Phase-I of the SBT Project a nationwide network of 10 modern blood centres and up-gradation of 59 existing hospital based blood banks all over the country was successfully developed including a Regional Blood Centre in Peshawar and six hospital based blood banks.

Chairman of the BoG M. Javed Panni thanked the German government and KFW for creating the facility and said the provincial government is fully committed to improving the blood safety standards in KPK and the development of a Regional Blood Canter in Abbottabad and DI Khan in Phase-II.

He appealed to the people, especially youths, to donate voluntary blood on a regular basis to sustain the new centre.

Professor Zaheer said the facility will serve as a model blood centre for the region. It will be a procurement and distribution centre ensuring quality systems to regulate all activities which involve mobilisation and retention of voluntary regular blood donors, maintenance of donor database, collection of blood donations and processing, screening, testing, component preparation and storage of the prepared components.

“A customised Management Information System has been especially procured for the smooth functioning of the new system. He added that the blood components prepared in this centre will be provided to its linked public sector hospital blood banks which will be upgraded.”

He said after the construction of the modern centre, the existing Hospital Blood Banks will be functionally re-modelled and converted into patient oriented hospital transfusion services to perform the function of storage, distribution, compatibility testing and haemovigilance.

“The private and NGO sector hospitals will also be provided blood components by the new centre,” he said.