The National Institute of Biologicals (NIB) in association with Maharashtra state drugs control department will soon conduct workshops in Pune and Nagpur to educate blood bank personnel on blood transfusion related adverse reactions and adopt haemovigilance.

These workshops are intended to help blood banks adopt HvPI for making safe blood accessible to the common man. Currently, 207 blood banks are registered with Haemovigilance Programme of India (HvPI). There are 2760 licensed blood banks in the country as of today.

The workshops will give hands on training on Transfusion Reaction Reporting Format (TRRF) which is linked to the NIB through a software named Haemovigil at the national level.

The programme further envisages to make the blood bank officials across the state to understand the process of reporting adverse reactions to NIB due to blood transfusion to the recipient/patient through a Haemovigil software developed by IT division of NIB.

Having started with a budgetary allocation of Rs. 29 crore under the 12th Five Year Plan at the national level in December 2010, HvPI will be propagated in a phased manner in Maharashtra covering 200 blood banks in the initial phase out of the total 303 blood banks and 3 cord blood banks.

“Blood banks staff have not been reporting adverse reactions due to blood transfusion out of the fear of being penalised. Awareness about the reporting modalities and process will help blood banks to ensure blood quality and patient safety," says an official associated with the development.

More than 2200 adverse reactions have been reported till date through a Transfusion Reaction Reporting Format (TRRF) for haemovigilance. Haemovigilance is aimed at keeping details pertaining to collection, investigation, its analysis and transfusion of blood or blood components. It also documents adverse reactions to recipients and the people handling the vital fluid.

HvPI aims to identify trends in adverse reactions and events, thereby to form transfusion policy, target areas for improvement in practice, stimulate research, raise awareness of transfusion hazards, give an early warning of new complications to improve safety of transfusion for patients.

NIB is an autonomous institution under the Union health ministry which ensures quality of biologicals and vaccines in the country available through domestic manufacturers or imports. HvPI at the national level was launched by NIB and is serving as the national co-ordinating centre (NCC) in 90 medical institutions within the country to track adverse reactions associated with blood transfusion and blood product administration.