Donors’ fear of knowing HIV status starving blood banks

A shortage of blood stocks looms in Nakuru and South Rift as residents give blood donation campaigns a wide berth. It all stems from the fear that blood donors are tested and informed of their HIV status, a reality many Kenyans find difficult to countenance, despite years of vigorous awareness campaigns.

Medical workers and agencies behind campaigns to woo Kenyans to donate the life-saving pints are now grappling with a dilemma as fewer and fewer people turn up to voluntarily give blood, except when it is needed to save the life of a close relative or friend. The Nakuru Regional Blood Transfusion Centre, is one of the six such centres countrywide, that were built a decade ago to serve as reservoirs of blood for supplying hospitals in the region.

Other centres are in Nairobi, Kisumu, Mombasa, Embu and Eldoret. Their establishment, with the funding from the US Government came in the wake of the 1998 US Embassy bombing in Nairobi. It was the high demand for blood by those injured in the bombing that gave birth to the idea of establishing the blood banks and stocking them for eventualities of a similar nature.

Though Kenyans thronged the centres to donate blood shortly after their launch, the number of volunteers has greatly declined over the years. The Nakuru centre, just like the others, stocks far less than half of its 5,000 pints of blood of blood capacity. Dr Nick Kiptanui, the Nakuru Regional Blood Transfusion Centre’s technical director, in an interview with the Nation said: “Blood donation was at its optimum immediately after Regional Blood Transfusion Centres were established.”

But the habit changed as the rate of HIV infection shot up, with most people keeping off the donation, the director says. The Nakuru centre serves the vast Rift Valley Province as well as parts of Nyanza and Central provinces. Such is the stigma now facing blood donations that at some point, the amount of blood stocks declined by half, and the transfusion centre had to hire recruiters to convince people to donate blood.

That wananchi (citizens) are the ones to reap the benefits of a fully-stocked blood bank was a message driven home painfully with the January 31 Sachang’wan petrol tanker explosion in Molo, which occurred as villagers collected free fuel from an overturned tanker. The tragedy claimed 89 lives on the spot and left over a 100 others hospitalised with serious burns and in need of specialised medical attention, including surgical operations that required many pints of blood.

After the disaster, and with minimal blood stocks in the cold rooms, the centre had to embark on a donation drive that received a good response from the public and the military, with hundreds of pints of blood being received. However, according to Dr Kiptanui, Kenyans need not wait for a disaster to happen for them to donate blood. Every citizen of good health should not only make blood donation a habit, but a national duty, he suggests.

He recalls that when a colleague called him and informed him of the Sachang’wan fire tragedy and the numbers of those likely to be taken to hospitals and therefore needing blood, his mind immediately went to the stock he had in his refrigerators. With only a stock of 1,000 pints of blood, Dr Kiptanui knew he would need hundreds of other pints of blood to help save the lives of survivors of the fire tragedy and leave some for other emergencies.

He rushed to the scene, to witness the magnitude of the tragedy, and watched as more than a hundred victims were taken to different hospitals, all of who would needed blood. “Though I knew the 1,000 pints of blood in my cold room would have been almost enough, I could not take chances considering that the same would be needed by patients at the Provincial General Hospital,” said Dr Kiptanui.

The centre is yet to garner blood stocks to the level it had prior to the fire tragedy, Dr Kiptanui says. Mr James Mwangi, one of the centre’s blood donor recruiters, said it was still hard to convince individuals and corporate employees to donate blood as most of them perceive blood donation as a scheme to uncover their HIV status.

Voluntary Counselling

“People view donation of blood as an alternative to visiting a Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centre. They forget that we need their blood to help suffering people, not to know their HIV status,” said Mwangi. And the fears that vital information touching on findings on blood that they donate are passed on to employers were unfounded, Mr Mwangi says.

According to Dr Kiptanui, students are increasingly forming the core group of blood donors. The donation centres often face shortages during school holidays when they cannot access students. Most people abandon blood donation culture after high school.

The Centre’s operations are funded by the Government with help from the US and the Japanese governments. It is now the duty of Kenyans to reciprocate this gesture by turning up and donating blood for the sake of those who would be in need, said the doctor.