Are our donors safe?

Blood is defined as a 'drug' under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act. The Standard of drugs is laid down in the Indian Pharmacopoeia. The first step towards blood safety is to encourage blood donations, which are voluntary, non-remunerated and obtained from low-risk and regular donors. A regular donor is one who donates blood two to three times a year and continues to donate at least once a year. Over the last 8 years, the Drug Control Authority has been taken up many steps to improve the quality of blood in circulation. As a result, blood centres are now equipped with minimum modern tests for making blood safer. The inspectors are also emphasising the need to employ uniform procedures for donor selection, donor deferral, validation of equipment, and so on. Over the last 5 years, quality control of diagnostic kits prior to their registration and marketing have been streamlined to ensure that blood centres use highly sensitive kits while testing for blood transmissible diseases. Therefore, current methods of donor screening and testing of donated blood have led to a remarkable decrease in the incidence of transfusion-transmitted infection and a blood supply that is very safe. The greatest threat to blood safety is donation by seronegative individuals during the infectious window period when they are undergoing seroconversion and infection cannot be detected by available laboratory tests. Look-backs is the process whereby blood collection facilities attempt to indentify prior recipients of blood donated by individuals who subsequently test positive TTD. This alone can assure safety.