Blood donors to be screened by Red Cross

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)