Issue, 36, Blood Transfusion Safety, published on October 2008.

Blood Transfusion Safety

Everyday, more than 100 units of blood are needed in Cambodia. Surgery, trauma, severe anaemia and complications of pregnancy are among the clinical conditions that demand blood transfusion.

Blood transfusion is an essential part of modern health care. Used correctly, it can save life and improve health. However, blood transfusion is also an effective means of transmitting HIV, hepatitis B and C, syphilis, and malaria.

While blood transfusion can be life-saving, many transfusions are given unnecessarily when the availability and use of simpler, less expensive treatments would provide equal or greater benefit. Not only does this expose patients needlessly to the risk of potentially fatal transfusion reactions, it also widens the gap between supply and demand and contributes to shortages of blood and blood products for patients who really need them.

Safe blood transfusion requires not only the application of technology to blood processing and testing. It also requires social mobilization to promote voluntary, unpaid blood donation by sufficient numbers of people who have no infectious diseases that can be transmitted to the recipients of their blood.

The need for blood is constant, but its availability depends on the extraordinary generosity of people who donate it as the most precious of gifts- the gift of life. The quality and safety of blood provided for patients depends not only on a national quality system for blood transfusion services, but quality in every activity from the recruitment of blood donors through to the appropriate use and safe administration of blood to the patient.

This issue of Health Messenger provides a detailed discussion for promoting blood safety and minimizing the risks associated with transfusion. The article on Clinical Blood Transfusion Practice will assist prescribers of blood to make appropriate decisions on transfusion and contribute to wider efforts to minimize the unnecessary use of blood. You will also find information on the recruitment and retention of safe blood donors for ensuring that all patients in need of blood, wherever they are, will have an adequate and safe supply of this gift of life.