Nagpur : The importance of conducting the Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) on the donated blood has been underlined after the unfortunate incident in Vidarbha where some thalassaemia major children got HIV infection through blood transfusion. While no blood bank attached to any of the government hospitals in Vidarbha has NAT facility, it could be outsourced immediately only if the state government wishes so.
At least five states in the country are conducting this test mandatorily through outsourcing to provide safe and secure blood to the patients. In Maharashtra, the proposal in this regard is pending for about six months now.
Five states including neighbouring Karnataka are providing NAT-tested blood to all receivers with the help of a private service provider ‘hemogenomics’. Sangeeth Gopala Kini, vice-president of Bengaluru-based ‘hemogenomics’, told TOI that they had submitted a proposal to the Maharashtra government about six months back but are yet to receive any communication. “Maybe the proposal is under the consideration of the state government,” said Kini. Officials in Maharashtra health department confirmed that the proposal has been received and it’s under consideration.
Currently, ID-NAT, a kind of advanced NAT screening is done in five states – Rajasthan, UP, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Karnataka — by the state governments. The implementation model of Hemogenomics is in a different phase in each state as per the need. Apart from the state-level NAT screenings, the centers of excellence such as AIIMS Delhi, AIIMS Rishikesh, Army hospitals in Delhi, Pune, Kolkata, RML Lucknow, Tata Cancer Hospital Mumbai etc have implemented ID-NAT screening for all the donated blood units.
Kini said that the company works on a centralized testing model. “The system is installed at one centre. We collect samples from various medical colleges and district hospitals and we bring them to the testing facility. Samples are processed here and results are emailed to the hospital. Our skilled manpower handles and supervises the entire process,” he said.
This means if a lab is installed in Nagpur, it could cater to entire Vidarbha region. For this the state health department need to consider the pending proposal.
It’s not that government hosptials in Nagpur never tried for NAT facility. Dr Seema Parwekar, medical superintendent of Daga Hospital, claimed that the hospital had submitted a proposal for the same and sought funds from DPDC last year. The guardian minister was quite positive about the proposal but it is still pending with the state government.
