Experts raise alarm over prevalence of HIV in voluntary blood donors in Sindh –II


The alarming rise of HIV-positive voluntary blood donors in Sindh has prompted health experts and authorities to take immediate action. Key Recommendations: 

- Improve blood screening and testing protocols.
Dr Syed Faisal Mahmood

- Enhance donor education and awareness campaigns.

- Increase access to HIV testing and counseling.

By Mukhtar Alam

KARACHI: When contacted by this reporter, Dr Syed Faisal Mahmood, head of the Infectious Diseases section at the Aga Khan University, remarked that the situation is alarming, but the rates of HIV positive cases are still low, against the rates of some other transfusion transmitted infections (TTIs) in the community. “Towards a way out I will suggest to ensure that screening of blood is mandatory; is being done with reliable test kits; and that any positives are linked to care and they are not lost,” he said.

“Due to weaknesses of the blood collection and transfusion system, there are more undetected people in Sindh, leave alone the high-risk groups,” he added.

New HIV cases in Sindh (2024)
Dr Mahmood continued: “Despite efforts of SBTA, we still have unregulated blood banks which mushroom up. I think we also need to involve the patients to ensure that they are getting blood from places which are reliable.”

Referencing to various HIV outbreaks in Sindh during a period of 2019-2024, a senior expert in HIV diseases, Dr Sharaf Ali Shah stated that HIV transmission due to unethical practices, including the reuse of unsterilised needles by medical professionals, barber shop tools used for shaving and male circumcision, and unsafe unregulated blood transfusions, are some of the reasons behind frequent HIV outbreaks in Sindh.

“At present, the prevalence of HIV infection in Pakistan is less than 0.1%. However, a steady increase in HIV cases is being reported by the general public as HIV screening has become mandatory in some departments,” he said.

New HIV cases in Sindh (2023)

“Although HIV has been declared a notifiable disease by the Sindh government, all cases are not notified, because our surveillance system is weak,” he added.

The federal government and all the provincial agencies concerned use reports of “Integrated Biological and Behavioral Surveillance” which are conducted all over the country, but, unfortunately the IBBS survey conducted last time in Pakistan was in 2017.

Responding to a question, the expert said: “Certainly, HIV prevalence of 0.15% in blood donors is alarming. It is because we don’t have 100% voluntary blood donors. Blood transfusion authority has failed to increase proportion of voluntary blood donors since many years.”

Dr Sharaf Ali Shah

At the same time, he feared that the referral of HIV positive detected blood donors for treatment was also not up to the mark.

An infectious disease expert at Dow University of Health Sciences, Dr Azizullah Khan Dhiloo, said the reported prevalence of 0.15 % HIV positive cases among the blood donors, mainly from general population was highly concerning, but before labelling them as HIV cases few things need to be looked up like what kits the blood banks are using for HIV screening. A NAAT (Nucleic Acid Amplification Test) testing is recommended, which is being used by few labs in Sindh, he said emphasising any HIV positive blood donor shall be tested with WHO-based three-test strategy to rule out false positives.

Dr Azizullah Khan Dhiloo

SBTA Director Dr Dure Naz Jamal observed that screenings carried out at SBTA affiliated blood banks and regional centres were well in line with the standard and reliable practices and added that subjecting all the samples to NAAT was not feasible in view of the given work nature of the blood banks.

She, however, called for coming up with a strong follow-up mechanism ensuring that the donors suspected of HIV and other infections are well taken up by the organisations concerned in a real time to avert chances of staying out of the donors in question from the testing, counselling, surveillance and treatment networking. She shared that SBTA was already discussing a “timely connect” of the HIV detected patients with CDC-HIV of the Sindh Health Department.

Data sources: Sindh Health Department and CDC-HIV, Sindh 

Dr Naz too was of the view that positivity of transmissible diseases among the voluntary and family/exchange donors was of grave concern as such donors come from sensible and safe groups and do not belong to professional donors’ cluster or other high-risk groups.   

Courtesy: Social Track, weekly

 

With an uninterrupted 23-year career in daily journalism (1991-2013), the author/editor of this blog currently serves as Editor of Social Track, a weekly newspaper focused on social sectors, based in Karachi. Holding a master's degree in Mass Communications from the University of Karachi (1990), his professional experience includes roles as senior reporter at Daily Dawn, Karachi (May 2001-August 2013) and Chief Reporter at The News International, Karachi (April 1991-May 2001). He has a strong background in development journalism, he has an extensive portfolio of news stories, analytical reports and features covering a wide range of sectors. He has had the privilege of covering numerous high-profile figures, including Pakistani presidents, prime ministers, army chiefs, foreign dignitaries, and VVIPs and attending conferences and workshops abroad. He began his journalism career in the early 1980s. Throughout his career, he has received several national awards from government and private organisations. He has contributed to various radio and TV/channel broadcasts and has also served as a trainer at workshops in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad, focused on training journalists.

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