While India continues to face a deficit in blood donation, making Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) mandatory may ward off the risk of infections to those requiring regular blood transfusions, said experts here on Tuesday.

National Voluntary Blood Donation is celebrated on October 1 every year to raise awareness about the importance of blood and the need for voluntary blood donation.

India has consistently fallen short of the World Health Organization’s recommendation that 1 per cent of the population donate blood. This is despite having a potential donor base of 402 million people.

While the country needs 14.6 million units of blood annually, it faces a deficit of around one million units.

Myths and misconceptions about contracting infections like HIV, and lack of awareness, are the major reasons for the lack of volunteer blood donations in India, said the experts.

“Voluntary blood donation in India has seen growth, yet there remains a significant gap in meeting the national demand majorly due to lack of awareness,” RishiRaj Sinha, Transfusion Medicine Specialist, AIIMS Delhi, told IANS.

“People probably do not know that there are so many people out there who need blood regularly. That is why there is no motivation to give blood voluntarily, a reason why there is so much demand-supply gap,” added Anubha Taneja Mukherjee, Member Secretary of the Thalassemia Patient Advocacy Group.

Further, safe blood supply to needy patients, such as those who require repeated blood transfusions is also a concern, said the experts. This can be eased by making Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) mandatory.

“No blood is donated to any patient across India, without proper testing. But, NAT is extremely beneficial as the highly-sensitive method of testing blood can detect even the lowest amount of virus in the blood,” Sinha said.

NAT test improves the safety of donor blood for transfusion, V. K. Khanna, Director, Institute of Child Health Preeti Tuli Thalassemia Unit at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, told IANS.

“When compared with routinely performed tests on donor blood, NAT test reduces the chances of transmission of certain infections such as HIV, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C by early detection of these infections in donor blood,” he added.

The expert explained that the implementation of NAT testing on donor blood would benefit everyone who receives a blood transfusion, especially those patients who receive repeated blood transfusions such as patients of thalassemia, sickle cell disease, haemophilia, aplastic anaemia, cancer, kidney disease, and others conditions.

Mukherjee told IANS that safe blood is a huge challenge, especially for patients with thalassemia who need blood every 15 to 20 days.

“Because we do not have much voluntarily donated blood, if screening is stringent, then probably that will take care of the safety aspect at least,” she said, urging the government to make “NAT testing mandatory throughout India, at least in government hospitals”.