Even as dengue has caused widespread panic and fueled the demand for blood components like platelets, only three state run hospitals - LTMG Hospital, Sion, KEM and JJ Hospital have the licence to run the facility of component separation. Based on state FDA records, which issues licence for setting up blood banks, most hospitals lack the facility as they do not have the licence to run it.  

Hospitals like Cama Albess Hospital, St George Hospital, G T Hospital, Dr R N Cooper Hospital, Desai Hospital, Santacruz, Rajawadi Hospital, Bhabha Hospital and MT Agarwal Municipal Hospital lack the facility to separate life saving components from the whole blood. Only in the case of St George Hospital, red cells are separated from the whole blood.  

According to experts, the concept of component separation need to be embraced in the current scenario as blood availability through voluntary donation is rising but no serious effort is made to maximise the use of every unit of blood procured by blood banks.

There has been an increase in voluntary blood donation from 38 to 95 per cent between 1997 to 2014. Blood collection has increased from 3. 6 lac units in 1997 to 14.76 lac units in 2014 through a six fold increase in blood donation camps across the state.

Nearly 80 per cent of the blood collected is transfused as whole blood. One practical way of using blood effectively is to separate its various constituents -red blood concentrates, fresh frozen plasma, cryoprecipitates, and platelet concentrates. When separated, a unit of blood will meet the requirements of more than one patient. Many ailments call for the transfusion of only specific components, not whole blood. There are other advantages of separation, such as the extended shelf life of components.

In dengue, platelet count in a person's body goes down, weakening immunity. Since there is no medication available to cure the disease, it becomes imperative to improve the platelets level.

Components are to be separated from blood within six hours.  Plasma separated from blood can be further fractionated to produce many useful life-saving components such as Factor VIII, fibrinogen, albumin, and gamma globulin. India now imports every year fractionated components valued at more than Rs. 50 crore.

An increasing number of patients are in need of platelets, and even as blood banks are either running short of stock, or are charging exorbitantly. Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently served show cause notices to 72 blood banks located in Greater Mumbai, Nashik, Konkan, Nagpur and Pune divisions for overpricing blood in violation of Article 47 of the constitution and Drugs and Cosmetics Act.

Show- cause notices were served based on the inspections carried between November 3 and November 5, 2014 across Maharashtra under the guidance of Commissioner FDA Purshottam Bhapkar. The state has a total of 309 blood banks and the state regulator plans to bring in more accountability towards making safer blood available.