Improving supply of safe blood and reducing cost of transfusion service through haemovigilance.

Availability of safe blood remains a major challenge for many developing countries. Unnecessary discontinuation of scarce blood is a major conduit of wastage of scarce blood, as well as man hours and funds. Haemovigilance is a national system of surveillance and alarm, from blood collection to the follow-up of the recipients, gathering and analysing all untoward effects of blood transfusion in order to correct their cause and prevent recurrence. A prospective study to audit discontinuation of blood transfusion at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Ile-Ife over a period of one and half years was done. Simple febrile non-haemolytic transfusion reaction (FNHTR) was the leading indication for such discontinuation (66.7%). More than half of discontinued transfusion due to FNHTR (58%) was successfully completed on review by trained personnel in transfusion medicine. A system of haemovigilance if incorporated into the blood transfusion service will promote effective monitoring of blood transfusion and reduce wastage of scarce blood/blood products.