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THE National Blood Service Zimbabwe (NBSZ) is working to introduce nucleic acid testing (NAT), which is a better and more advanced way of screening the vital fluid for infectious agents.
NBSZ chief executive officer Ms Lucy Marowa said this on the sidelines of the launch of the World Blood Donor Day campaign this week.
All blood donations are tested for multiple disease markers with current tests conducted to screen for hepatitis, HIV, syphilis and others.
Every unit of blood is also tested to identify the donor’s blood group (O, AB or AB) and screened for atypical or unusual red cell antibodies.
A NAT is a technique used to detect a particular nucleic acid sequence and thus usually to detect and identify a particular species or subspecies of an organism, often a virus or bacterium that acts as a pathogen in blood, tissue or urine.
NATs differ from other tests in that they detect genetic materials (RNA or DNA) rather than antigens or antibodies. Detection of genetic materials allows for early diagnosis of a disease because the detection of antigens and or antibodies requires time for them to start appearing in the bloodstream.
Since the amount of a certain genetic material is usually very small, many NATs include a step that amplifies the genetic material, that is makes many copies of it.
“Nucleic acid test is we are looking for the viral DNA in the sample in short. It’s a more precise method of testing because it is more sensitive than the other tests that we are doing now,” said Ms Marowa.
“It is more sensitive in the sense that it probes deeper than what we are currently doing at the moment.
“Because of that, it will enhance blood safety, because it probes further than what we are doing now.
“This means that as far as we are doing risk profiling of blood donors, certain fundamentals will change. So ordinarily certain areas where we would not go, we would certainly go.”
Ms Marowa said the NBSZ was also planning to embark on a programme to encourage more adults in the country to donate blood as a disturbingly small number were doing so.
“We want to make sure that we change the statistics to have a 50/50 balance between the adults and the youths. At the moment we are scaled towards the youths with 70 versus 30 percent in terms of the balance between adults and the youths,” she said.
“If we could do 50/50, have more adults coming in to join the blood collection pool, it would help.”
She said in 2022 they managed to collect 59 000 units of blood, around 70 000 last year and this year the target is 87 000 units of blood.
World Blood Donor Day (WBDD) is celebrated on the 14th of June of every year, and this year in Zimbabwe the celebrations have been set for Saturday 15 June, at Kwekwe High School in the Midlands province.
In 2021, the WBDD was held in Matabeleland, and Mutare and Masvingo in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
The WBDD came into effect in 2005 after the 58th World Health Assembly attended by Health Ministers for various countries.
According to the WHO, countries should run sustainable nationally coordinated blood programs that meet the demands of their citizens.
This means that on average for a national blood program to be sustainable, it should collect blood from 10 people per every 1 000 in the population, and Zimbabwe is hovering around 6 per 1 000, allowing it to meet 80 per cent national blood demand — New Ziana.
Online Reporter