Blood Transfusion in Sub‐Saharan Africa

Abstract

SUMMARY The population of Sub‐Saharan Africa has an average annual income of $400–1000 and cannot afford blood produced according to the standards established by affluent countries. To prepare enough safe blood in a sustainable fashion, African countries need to optimize use of their own resources and develop ways to produce affordable safe blood appropriate to their own situations. Uncritical adoption of external advice and models, particularly those from more wealthy countries, may lead to problems of sustainability unless they are adapted for use in resource‐poor environments. Sub‐Saharan African countries have developed a variety of systems to achieve the objective of producing safe blood. These vary from centralized, high volume, modern blood centers to locally organized donor programs for isolated district health care facilities. The wide range of systems to recruit, select and retain blood donors and of availability of choice of reagents and equipment to screen blood allows flexibility so that the transfusion process can be adapted to local circumstances and resources. With variations in the prevalence rate of HIV, HBV and HCV, the cumulative prevalence is invariably high in Africa and therefore, test sensitivity is critical. Nucleic acid testing is highly sensitive but is not affordable. New inexpensive and effective testing technology as well as pathogen inactivation techniques directed towards the needs of developing countries should become a major target of external support.

Knowledge, attitudes and clinical practice of blood products prescribers in Niamey

“…Indeed, up to 80% of transfusions that are performed in Sub-Saharan Africa are a result of anemia or haemorrhage [9].…”

Les hépatites B et C chez les donneurs bénévoles de sang et non rémunérés de l’Est de la République démocratique du Congo

“…Différentes études effectuées en Afrique Subsaharienne à différentes époques montrent qu'il y avait une forte endémicité pour les virus des hépatites B (VHB) et C (VHC), et une forte pré-valence du virus d'immunodéficience humaine VIH [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Cela a pour conséquence, l'augmentation du risque résiduel transfusionnel de ces virus [8][9][10] et la transmission de ces maladies par le biais des produits sanguins non sécurisés [11,12].…”

Prevalence of malaria parasites among blood donors in Kaduna, Nigeria

“…10,11 Compared with other transfusion-transmitted infections, the very high prevalence of malaria among blood donors has been almost totally ignored. 12 The critical lack of convincing evidence about the clinical impact of transfusion-transmitted malaria and the absence of effective and feasible screening methods are being blamed for lack of rational decision-making on whether or not to screen blood for malaria. 13 This study was undertaken to assess the prevalence of malaria among blood donors in order to highlight the potential risk associated with transfusion related malaria (TRM) in the study area.…”