Donor Blood Procurement, Safety, and Clinical Utilization: A Study of Blood Transfusion Services in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Nigeria

Abstract

Background. Donated blood is an essential component of the management of many diseases, and hospital-based blood banks in Nigeria are saddled with the responsibility of provision of safe blood and coordination of its appropriate utilization for patient care. Objective. This study reviewed the extent to which the hospital blood transfusion service ensures adequate safe blood supply and utilization. Materials/Methods. This was a retrospective study of 2 years record of the blood bank service of Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching. Methods of donor blood procurement, transfusion transmissible infection status, the pattern of blood, and blood component usage across the hospital’s clinical departments were evaluated. Statistical analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS, and data were presented as percentages. Fisher’s tests were used to test significance, and p value <0.05 is significant. Results. The highest proportion of donors was male family replacement donors aged 26–35 years (3634 (39.68%)) while total voluntary donors were 315 (2.65%). Hepatitis B had the highest seroprevalence 267 (2.22%) among blood-borne diseases screened. National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) supplied only 3 (0.03%) of total blood units used. The accident and emergency department had the highest proportion of persons who utilized whole blood; 4568 (99.96%). Conclusion. The hospital blood bank relies heavily on family replacement donors with little or no assistance from the National Blood Transfusion Service. Family replacement donors have the highest risk of TTIs, and hepatitis B infection has the highest prevalence. The high cost of blood component therapy increases the need for whole blood.

Knowledge Level, Attitude and Practice of Blood Transfusion among Caregivers attending the Paediatric Outpatient Clinic in the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital, Nigeria

“…Replacement and commercial donors thus predominated in the present study which is against the World Health Organisation recommendation in favour of voluntary nonremunerated blood donors being the best and safest source of blood for transfusion. [31] Sadly, blood donation has been low as seen in Benin [29] Nigeria where only 22.1% participants had ever donated blood, Addis Ababa, [24] Ethiopia 26.4% and 36.9% in Ebonyi State, [25] Nigeria. It is worthy of note that Kebede et al [22] in their institutional cross-sectional study documented that attending primary school and above, having favourable attitude towards blood donation, having adequate knowledge of blood donation and ever donated blood were factors significantly associated with the willingness to donate blood.…”

Community survey on the knowledge, attitude, and practice of blood donation in Ebonyi State, Southeast Nigeria

“…4,5 This marked deficit in the supply of safe blood from voluntary donors and excessive demand for family replacement paved the way for commercial donors which constitute about the majority of donors in some places. 6 Despite advocacy and recommendation by WHO for voluntary non-remunerated blood donors as the best form of donors, commercial and family replacement donors still hold sway to provide blood for blood banks in our setting due to gross apathy to voluntary donation despite the attendant risks of transfusion transmissible infections even in the face of the lack of more efficient screening techniques. 6 It is therefore of utmost importance to devise a framework to motivate and recruit more voluntary blood donors with additional efforts geared towards their retention in the donor pool in Nigeria and other developing countries.…”