Haemovigilance Programme of India (HvPI) has 413 blood banks registered with it so far. These blood banks are facilitated with a unique ID and password through an online platform developed and implemented by National Institute of Biologicals (NIB) in collaboration with ministry of information and technology with support from National Informatics Centre (NIC).
The Union health ministry has recently upscaled and consolidated the project by launching haemovigil and donor-vigil softwares as a part of expanding HvPI towards complete reporting of adverse transfusion reactions in both blood recipients and blood donors.
With the coming up of National Blood Donor Vigilance Programme (NBDVP), HvPI will now help access and connect with blood donors and recipients comprehensively in all the blood banks across the country which was earlier restricted till reporting of transfusion reactions in blood recipients only.
This would broaden the scope of Haemovigilance Programme of India in the country which was launched with the sole purpose of collecting data related to blood transfusion reactions from blood donors.
NBDVP was launched on June 14, 2015 on World Blood Donor Day at Science City, Kolkata to improve donor safety and satisfaction through monitoring, analysing and researching adverse events.
This will help complete full circle with respect to reporting adverse reactions both in terms of blood donor and recipient and hence serve the larger purpose of blood safety through HvPI.
It would involve blood banks across the country to register online with a unique ID and password to uplink with the server based in National Institute of Biologicals, Noida for reporting blood related adverse reactions in both blood recipients and blood donors.
Launched in June 2015, NBDVP will complement HvPI which currently generates reports on blood recipient related adverse reaction through a Transfusion Reaction Reporting Form (TRRF). This is then linked via haemovigil software to NIB.
HvPI at the national level was launched on December 10, 2012 by NIB, functioning under the ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) to track adverse reactions associated with blood transfusion and blood product administration.
NBDVP is in the process of collecting blood donor data from 2,760 licensed blood banks and medical institutions through a Blood Donor Adverse Reaction Reporting Form (BDARF). It will help to analyse risk factors, implement and evaluate preventive measures, reduce frequency of adverse events and increase donor frequency.
HvPI aims to identify trends in adverse reactions and events, thereby to form transfusion policy, target areas for improvement in practice, stimulate research and raise awareness of transfusion hazards.