Bengaluru: Karnataka govt is set to introduce tough measures, including introduction of global protocols, accreditation and appointment of district-level officers, to make blood transfusion foolproof. The move follows recent reports of two thalassaemia patients in Haryana’s Faridabad allegedly contracting HIV after receiving infected blood during transfusion.Karnataka State Blood Transfusion Council has, in recent govt orders, mandated that all blood banks must obtain accreditation from National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers or certification under National Quality Assurance Standards programme within one year.Senior professors from blood-transfusion medicine or pathology departments will be appointed district blood transfusion officers to strengthen management of blood banks.Karnataka has a total of 266 blood centres, and 223 of them are private. With 85 centres (72 private and 13 govt), Bengaluru has the highest concentration of blood banks, followed by Belagavi, Bagalkot, Dakshina Kannada and Kalaburagi districts.” To obtain these accreditations and certifications, blood banks will have to follow international standard protocols that ensure the safety of the blood. The accreditation rule is currently not mandatory under the National Blood Transfusion Bill, 2025, but we proposed to the Centre to include it,” said Padma Basavanthappa, project director of AIDS Prevention Society.The health dept, along with officials from the drug control dept, conducts surprise inspections of these blood banks once every 3 to 6 months, and this will continue.With thalassaemia patients requiring frequent blood transfusions, the health department has decided to use Multiplex Nucleic Acid Testing (MNAT), a more sensitive test used to screen blood before transfusion. For now, ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay), which detects infections by using enzyme-linked antibodies that bind to specific antigens or antibodies in the blood and produce a colour change if the infection marker is present, is the widely used blood testing protocol before transfusion across the state.“If a donor is infected and we test the blood before transfusing it to a patient, infection might not show up for 3 to 5 days on a regular test. But MNAT test can detect the infection even if it was contracted in the past 24 hours. We are purchasing them for all govt hospitals,” said Harsh Gupta, principal secretary, health department. He added that equipment at blood banks is also being upgraded or replaced based on requirement.+++Why certifications are a must * Blood collection, testing, storage and transfusion must follow strict quality and safety standards* Centres must follow standard protocols for donor screening, infection testing, storage and traceability of blood units* Licences of blood banks will be cancelled if they fail to obtain accreditation or certification within 1 year
