Tainted blood on the rise, PMI says

Tainted blood on the rise, PMI says

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Jakarta Red Cross (PMI Jakarta) has revealed that donated
blood contaminated with hepatitis B and C, HIV and syphilis is
increasing.

PMI Jakarta found that in 2003, 5 percent of the 230,000 blood
pouches, or 11,500, were contaminated. The number is higher than
in 2002 when only 3 percent of 214,129 blood pouches were
contaminated, in total, an increase of around 60 percent.

PMI Jakarta blood transfusion unit head Erlita L. Johan said
on Friday that the infected blood came from donors who had
hepatitis or HIV and the bacteria that caused syphilis.

"We can't reject people who want to donate blood because it's
a noble act. We have a procedure to screen the donated blood so
that we know that certain donors' blood is contaminated. However,
we don't get the test results until eight hours after the person
has donated the blood," she said.

The procedure for blood donation necessitates the donors to be
examined first by a doctor before they can donate blood. They
also must give a blood sample to be screened, while the blood to
be donated is taken at the same time.

According to the PMI 2002 report, the institution uses the
Enzym Immuno Assay (Elisa) test to screen the blood before they
decide to use it for transfusion. If this test reveals the
possibility of disease, the hospital will examine the blood with
the donors' approval by using the Western Blott test. The test
will identify the specific virus or bacteria.

Currently, 3.4 percent of donated blood is contaminated with
hepatitis B, 0.5 percent with syphilis, 0.11 percent with HIV and
0.14 with hepatitis C.

It means there are 36,300 blood donors carrying the HIV virus
in 2003 in Jakarta while official reports state that there are
only 120,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Indonesia.

Data from the Ministry of Health shows that the prevalence of
HIV among blood recipients increased sharply from 0.002 percent
in 1992 to 0.15 percent in 2000.

Iskandar Sitorus of the Indonesian Institution of Legal Aid
Foundation for Health (LBH Kesehatan) argued that the
contamination showed PMI could not do its job properly and
proposed that the task of collecting blood should be given to the
health ministry.

"We are talking about human life here. They could be mistaken
when giving blood to recipients (and give contaminated blood
instead). It is not clear also whether they are able to discover
all the contaminated blood," he said.

"Besides, there is no law that protects people who contract a
dangerous disease from blood transfusions."

Both Erlita and Sujudi, the chairman of the blood transfusion
unit at the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI), acknowledged that a lack
of funds was still an obstacle to performing a complete blood
examination and processing of blood products at PMI.