Aurangabad blood bank launches new screening system

AURANGABAD: The Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Vaidikiya Pratisthan Trust's Dattaji Bhale blood bank has introduced the Nucleic Acid Technology (NAT) to screen its donors, said Mahendrasingh Chauhan, medical director and in charge of the blood bank.

Blood transfusion has drastically changed modern medicine, and NAT has revolutionised testing of infectious diseases in the modern blood banking. The technology reduces the 'window period' of the test - the time between the first infection and when the test can reliably detect that infection - and helps in early diagnosis of HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C.

The blood bank has so far supplied more than two lakh units of blood and blood products and hopes to scale greater heights in the coming years with the introduction of new and advanced technologies.

Noted physician Satish Kulkarni said, "The testing for critical agents was initiated at the Dattaji Bhale bank for its donors well before the test was made mandatory by the government. The setting up of the apheresis machine for single donor platelets and Hepatitis B vaccination for donors are a few more initiatives to add to the list."

Chauhan explained that the current conventional test procedures such as ELISA (Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay - a test for qualitative detection of antigens or antibodies to specific viruses in human serum or plasma) identify these deadly viruses only after a period of 30 to 70 days after infection. This period is called the window period in medical terms, where laboratory tests cannot determine the presence of antibodies against these infections. The NAT test directly helps detect the DNA/RNA of the viruses within 6-8 days, which helps bridge the window period and greatly reduces the risk of transfusion-transmitted infections."

The fully-automated, US-FDA approved, NAT screening system at the blood bank can reduce chances of human error and facilitates testing of a huge number of samples at one go, with great ease. "The machine can also screen for HIV-2, which is prevalent in the Indian population, along with HIV 1, HBV and HCV. The entire testing is well monitored at every step to ensure accurate results," Chauhan added.

"The spread of these fatal diseases through transfusion is a serious matter of concern as donated blood is further divided into components such as red blood cells, platelets and plasma. This means that infected blood can affect as many as three to four different patients and can further spread in a chain process. Hence, an efficient testing protocol and implementation of sophisticated technologies such as NAT is the only answer to ensure further safety," said Anil Bhalerao, chief executive officer, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Vaidikiya Pratisthan Trust.

He added that in keeping with the tradition of continual improvement, the blood bank would start issuing 100% NAT tested blood to all its patients. Sangeeta Pathak, senior consultant and head of the blood bank at Max Super Specialty Hospital, New Delhi, also shared her experience on NAT technology on the occasion.