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.