The National Blood Transfusion Council (NBTC) under the Union health ministry conducted a national stakeholder consultation to implement 100 per cent voluntary blood donation (VBD) by 2020 as per the objectives and startegies of National Blood Policy (NBP) 2002.

Currently, the voluntary blood donations account for 78 per cent of total 10.8 million blood units collected in the year 2014-2015 and there is a huge scope of improvement. NBTC, a part of National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) oversees and coordinates the functioning of blood transfusion services in the country and is actively engaged in promoting VBD and developing strategy for achieving 100 per cent VBD by 2020.

Says Dr R S Gupta, deputy director general, NBTC, “This consultation is aimed at providing a platform to all stakeholders in VBD to deliberate and provide inputs towards formulating a strategy for the next five years and review or revise NBTC guidelines for VBD.” Though the country has come a long way from reliance on professional blood donations post Supreme Court directive of 1996, family or replacement blood donors continue to provide a sizeable chunk of blood supply in India.

Speaking on the sidelines of the meet, Dr Jagdish Prasad, Director General Health Services (DGHS), said, “Voluntary blood donors are the cornerstone of a safe and adequate supply of blood and blood products. The safest blood donors are voluntary, non-remunerated, repeat blood donors from low risk populations.”

Health secretary B P Sharma and Dr. Pauline Harvey, country director, Centre for Disease Control (CDC) were also present on the occasion. As a part of the consultation, NACO has also formulated an action plan as per NBP objectives through a dynamic process to be updated every two years. Implementation of the operational strategies in the action plan calls for a multi-agency response from the government, private sector, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Medical Council of India (MCI), Indian Red Cross Society and NGOs.

“Socio-ecomonic barriers also need to be dealt with through awareness programmes to achieve 100 per cent VBD. There is also a need to make safe blood available to the remote parts of the country by setting up of blood storage centres. Each and every unit collected must be put to its best use and thereby underlining the importance of collected blood reaching the facilities with component preparation. In the current scenario of medical advancement, there is also a need to highlight the importance of aphaeresis donors and also have concrete strategy to promote the same,” said N S Kang, director general, Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS).

As per the objectives and strategies of NBP 2002 as laid out in the action plan, the practice of replacement donors shall be gradually phased out in a time bound programme to achieve 100 per cent voluntary non-remunerated blood donation programme. Extensive awareness programmes will be launched for donor information, education, motivation, recruitment and retention in order to ensure adequate availability of safe blood and National, State and UT blood transfusion councils shall involve other departments and sectors for promoting voluntary blood donation.

As per the deliberations of the meet, blood donation is a contribution which can be made by healthy persons from all walks of life. The pubic sector, private, corporate organizations all need to be roped in providing inputs for formulating the strategy as these have immense contributions and as way forward can have VBD under CSR activities. Annual calendar needs to chalked out at pan India level to ensure smooth conduction of camps. The potential role of social media and aspects of leveraging technology to create awareness shall be explored in discussions with thrust on roping in the youth for VBD.