HEALTH: Blood gets the spotlight for this year’s World Health Day

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

MEXICO CITY, Apr 3 2000 (IPS) - Brilliant Mushipe, a 20-year- old bank clerk in Zimbabwe, is determined not to become a victim of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). And he has a plan to ensure that he attains this goal.

Mushipe’s plan is simple: to keep donating blood to a Pledge 25 Club. A similar commitment has been made by thousands of other young Zimbabweans, both high school students and recent graduates.

Once such pledges are made, the young donors have to give blood 25 times during their late teens and early 20s, at the rate of a blood donation once every three or four months. Furthermore, such clubs have also incorporated rules to ensure that members do not default. They remain members only if they keep to the schedule and continue to test negative for HIV (human immuno- deficiency virus).

There is a convincing body of evidence suggesting why such donations will place him among those least likely to be infected by HIV. According to health experts in Zimbabwe, HIV infection rates have been low throughout the AIDS epidemic among blood donors, with less than one percent of donors testing positive last year.

The reason: those who are committed to donating blood regularly are compelled to be more responsible regarding their sexual behaviour.

While such Pledge 25 Clubs have been unique to Zimbabwe, that fact may not be the case for much longer. Impressed by the idea, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has included it among other activities it has in mind to promote the theme for this year’s World Health Day – “Blood Safety.”

The Geneva-based organisation has appealed to national health bodies around the world to encourage school students to develop such clubs on World Health Day 2000, which falls on Apr. 7.

The formation of such clubs, however, will not be for the exclusive purpose of stemming the tide of AIDS, as it prevails in Zimbabwe. The WHO has a broader agenda.

“This initiative both increases the level of blood available to national blood services, teaches young adults about blood safety, and helps replace paid with voluntary donors,” remarked Gregory Hartl, a spokesman for WHO.

The focus on blood for this year’s global health day has been prompted by the compelling need for safe blood around the world. “The human costs of unsafe blood are incalculable,” states a WHO report. “Morbidity and mortality resulting from the transfusion of infected blood have far-reaching consequences, not only for the recipients, but also for their families.”

The current figures for annual blood donation illustrates why the WHO is worried. More than 13 million units of the over 75 million units of blood donated worldwide each year “are not screened for transfusion- transmissible infections.”

Recipients of infected blood have succumbed to Hepatitis B and C, Syphilis, Chagas Disease and AIDS. According to WHO figures, between five and 10 percent of all HIV infections were transmitted through “the transfusion of infected blood and blood products.”

But there have also been those who have died for lack of blood. “Each year approximately 150,000 pregnancy related deaths could be avoided if appropriate transfusion therapy could be carried out,” laments the WHO.

This shortfall is most glaring in the developing world where the population has access to only 40 percent of all donated blood. And of that, close to 60 percent comes from “paid or replacement donors rather than from voluntary non-remunerated low-risk blood donors.”

What prevails in Latin America is typical of such a scenario. “Blood for transfusion is obtained from voluntary, unpaid donors in only a small portion of countries and territories in the Americas,” admitted Daniel Epstein, spokesman for the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO).

In the developed world, on the other hand, the blood supply comes from voluntary non-remunerated blood donors, who are considered a safer source of blood. What the WHO hopes through its “Blood Safety” initiative for this year’s World Health Day is to remedy this situation.

Already, national health authorities have been approached by the WHO to back this effort. In a statement to such governmental bodies, the WHO has called for a national programme in each country to educate, motivate, recruit and retain low-risk voluntary blood donors.

Such programmes will be able to “achieve substantial cost savings in the collection and screening of blood compared with systems of family replacement or paid donors.” This is because a significantly lower proportion of donated blood from regular voluntary non-remunerated donors “needs to be discarded.”

For Marcela Garcia Gutierrez, acting director of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRCRC), the “Blood Safety” initiative will also contribute significantly to “community involvement.”

“It will help ordinary people to realise that they have a role to play in global blood safety by taking steps to lead a healthy life-style and taking steps to see if they are eligible to donate blood,” she observed.

IFRCRC, which will be assisting the WHO during this year’s health day, also anticipates a shift in attitude by world leaders as a result of this effort. They will be compelled to acknowledge “the critical role of voluntary blood donors in health care.”

In the long run, what Gutierrez hopes for is the emergence of a new generation of voluntary blood donors.

The commitment by Mushipe and other young Zimbabweans is the model she and other public health workers have in mind. “The importance of young people becoming regular donors is significant,” she affirmed.