According to an article entitled "Blood Transfusion Safety, current status and challenges in Nigeria" (2017), achieving blood transfusion safety in Nigeria (and likely the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa) remains a difficult task due to a number of factors, including a lack of blood, inadequate implementation of blood transfusion guidelines, insufficient infrastructure, and a high prevalence of transfusion-transmissible infections (TTIs), particularly hepatitis and human immunization. Even though there has been a slight improvement, particularly in the area of screening donor blood for common TTIs, significant efforts are still required in the form of effective public education campaigns (on blood donation) and ongoing system improvement to move the nation's current transfusion practices in the direction of safety and self-sustenance.
Source: Aneke JC, Okocha CE. Blood transfusion safety; current status and challenges in Nigeria. Asian J Transfus Sci. 2017 Jan-Jun;11(1):1-5. doi: 10.4103/0973-6247.200781. PMID: 28316432; PMCID: PMC5345273
The following procedures must be followed when handling serum in order to guarantee the highest level of safety for blood transfusions:
A. Donor and recipient ABO and D groupings
- Both the donor and the recipient should have this determined precisely.
B. Extended donor and recipient red cell phenotyping
- In addition to ABO and D antigens, appropriate anti-sera are used to identify other antigens that can lead to immunological sensitizations and reactions, such as: C, E, c, e, K, k, etc.
C. Receipt serum antibody detection and screening
- Standard cell panels should include group O red cells that have been carefully phenotyped and contain all of the antigens that are known to cause transfusion reactions in the area, including D, C, E, C, E, K, K, etc. Additionally, the panels need to contain both homozygous and heterozygous cells for the phenotyped antigens. To demonstrate the dose impact during the antibody identification method, this is required.
Reference:
Ahmed, S. G. (2022). Transfusion services in tropical Africa: Challenges and prospects from the Nigerian perspective. Niger J Haematol, 3, 1-17.