Blood donors to be screened by Red Cross

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Red Cross' (PMI) Jakarta office said yesterday it was trialing blood donor screening, with counseling before and after donation.

The office's spokeswoman Sukantini said the office was trying to detect unhealthy donors early and would ask them politely to get treatment.

"It is a positive way to detect unhealthy donors in a strict but polite manner," she said.

Previously PMI Jakarta discarded unusable blood without following up the unhealthy donors, she said.

Counseling, questionnaires and follow-up contact would encourage donors to be open about their health before donating to the city's blood bank, Sukantini said.

It would also encourage rejected donors to get medical treatment and prevent them from transmitting disease.

"By detecting unhealthy donors at an early stage we can also save the cost of repeatedly testing the blood of the same unhealthy people," she said.

She said the questionnaires would be distributed in the pre- counseling session, to get information about donors' health.

HIV

Donors would be asked if they have the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) or contagious diseases such as hepatitis, malaria and syphilis.

The office has found potentially contagious diseases in donated blood including HIV, said Sukantini. She declined to give the exact number of cases found recently.

She said if the office found HIV positive donors it was expected only to refer the case to the special AIDS counseling center at Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital in Central Jakarta.

The office's chairman H.M. Muas announced in September 1995 that eight bags of blood at the bank had been contaminated with HIV.

The number is small compared to the 164,000 bags of blood it accepts from donors each year.

Since then the office has tightened the screening of blood donations and has assured the public that its blood was safe to use.

Widiati, another physician, said the office was doing its best in its social services and in helping hospitals get an adequate supply of blood.

She said taking blood donations was costly, last year it cost the office Rp 4.5 billion (US$1.9 million).

The office sold the blood bags to hospitals at prices set by the Ministry of Health, to compensate the cost.

She said the office distributed 270,000 bags a year or about 850 bags a day in 1995. (03)