Blood banks staff trained on bio-safety

Islamabad: The Safe Blood Transfusion Programme (SBTP) in collaboration with the International Society of Blood Transfusion organised a training workshop on ‘transfusion transmissible infections (TTIs) screening and bio-safety’ here on Wednesday.

Among participants were managers of blood banks from public, private and NGO sectors, haematology and transfusion medicine trainee doctors, medical technologists, blood transfusion officers and blood bank technicians.

The organisers said the event was held to train the existing workforce in the blood banks on the latest updates in the screening techniques, including biosafety and quality control criteria used in TTI screening.

The technical sessions included lectures on ‘Vein-to-Vein Transfusion Chain’, Principles of TTI Screening Assays, Hepatitis B virus screening strategy, Hepatitis C virus screening strategy, HIV screening strategy, Biosafety and Waste Management and Quality Assurance in TTI Screening.

The presentations were delivered by experts Noor-ul-Amin (RIC Hospital), Dr. Arshad Malik (IIU), Dr. Ahmed Farooq (IIU) and Saira Tahir, Kaenat Nasir and Usman Waheed (SBTP). Pre- and post-course assessment was done to have a systematic collection and analysis of information to improve participants’ learning. Participants were provided a questionnaire with 25 multiple-choice questions at the beginning and at the end of the training.

Overall, the knowledge after the post-course assessment was raised from 39% to 73.8%. Prof Hasan Abbas Zaheer, National Coordinator, SBTP, thanked the participants and speakers for their active participation.

He urged the participants to implement the national standards and guidelines in their blood banks to increase the blood safety through improved quality assured screening and bio-safety practices.

Souvenirs and certificates were distributed among the speakers and participants. HEC: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) through its Education Testing Council has announced Higher Education Aptitude Test (HAT), which will be required for award of HEC scholarships and to get admission in MS/MPhil programmes. Deadline for online registration is January 31, 2018.

The test, whose score will be valid for two years, is being organised for applicants who have already applied through official portal of HEC, those who intend to apply for HEC scholarships in future as well as those interested in applying for admission to MS/ MPhil programmes in public as well as private universities.

The aptitude test will be conducted in four different categories termed as HAT-1 for Engineering and IT, HAT-2 for Management Science and Business Education, HAT-3 for Art and Humanities and Social Sciences and HAT-4 for Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences, Biological Sciences, Medical Sciences and Physical Sciences. The candidates will be marked from 100 per cent grading system comprising 40 marks for quantitative reasoning, 30 marks for verbal reasoning, and 30 marks for analytical reasoning.