WHO Plans Action Against Rising HIV Count from Blood Transfusions

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday announced plans for a training center for blood bank officials in the Western Pacific. WHO said the current lack of training was putting people at risk of HIV infection. The details were released in Singapore, where the center will be located, during a WHO-organized meeting on quality management for blood transfusion services. Officials declined to give figures on how many people were being infected with HIV because of poor blood screening, but they said the figure was rising. The center's goal will be training 200 blood bank officers, including directors and quality control personnel, in four years.

"HIV infections are increasing in certain countries and certain areas in certain countries," said U.H. Susantha De Silva, the WHO representative for Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore. "The HIV epidemic situation in countries such as Cambodia and Vietnam -- and the recently reported cases of HIV infections through blood products collection in China -- highlights the importance of the issue," he told the meeting.

"In many countries of our region, transfusion therapy -- despite being a life-saving procedure -- is still associated with significant risks." De Silva cited "inadequate awareness among senior officers of the importance of quality management and insufficiently trained staff" as being among the main reasons for poor quality regional blood supplies. The screening process has broken down in some countries, he told reporters, and officials are skeptical about whether blood donors are being correctly monitored.

Patrick Tan, director of Singapore's Center for Transfusion Medicine, said some countries, which he would not name, did not process blood properly and correctly record blood groups. "With all the strict measures and new developments available to avoid transfusion-transmitted infections such as HIV . . . it is ironic that the commonest cause of fatal transfusion reactions continues to be transfusion of blood of an incompatible ABO blood group," said Hang Chang Chieh, chair of the Singapore Health Sciences Authority.

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