Abstract:

Background: For a longtime, blood safety remained an issue of major concern in transfusion medicine in Tanzania due to the fact that national blood transfusion services and policies, appropriate infrastructure, trained personal and financial resources were inadequate. As a result, in 2004, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW), in collaboration with CDC and other partners, established the National Blood Transfusions Services (NBTS) that encompasses a centralized system of coordinated blood transfusion. If blood transfusion is used correctly, it can save lives and improve treatment outcomes and if blood is not appropriately screened, it can transmit various infections such as HIV, Hepatitis B&C, Syphilis, or parasitic diseases. The main objective of this study was therefore to assess blood transfusion in resource – poor setting; challenges of management of blood products in the lake zone.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional-descriptive survey of the blood transfusion management in the western and lake zonal, in which ten blood transfusion hospitals were selected randomly among of sixteen health facilities.

Results: It was revealed that, in all 10 health facilities, there was a sufficient number of staff especially laboratory technicians and laboratory assistants. 90% of facilities visited had defined blood bank units, 70% (n=10) had phlebotomy rooms, 60 %( n=10) had blood bags of different size, 30 %( n=10) had Bp machine, and blood bag weighing scale, 20 %( n=10) had a body weighing scales in their laboratory units, but only 10 %( n=10) has counseling room. 86.1% of blood units collected were used in transfusion. Pediatric cases received the most blood (35.5%) followed by medical cases (32.6%), Obstetrics/Gynecology (22.1%) and Surgical cases (10.8%). None blood products were from voluntary donors, were collected from 57.4% of blood collected from replacement donors were used at the facility without sending them first to the zonal screening before used by health facilities.

Conclusion: Management of blood products in terms of collection, screening, ordering budgeting and distribution still a challenge at zonal and district levels. Equipment and reagents seem to be available at the health facilities but some equipment like BP machines, blood bags weighing machines, and body weighing scales were not available during the visit.