US stops Sh2bn support for Kenya’s blood services

The US government will stop funding the country’s blood services next month, putting the critical amenity in a quandary as the Ministry of Health has no backup plan for the blood collection and testing.

Reliable information indicates that US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief or PEPFAR annual funding of Sh2 billion for blood services will run out in September.

The Business Daily has established that PEPFAR has turned down the Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki’s request for a six-month extension for undisclosed reasons.

A foundation on advocacy on blood services in the country — Bloodlink — is now drawing attention to a looming health crisis.

Bloodlink Foundation executive director Joseph Wang’endo said termination of the funding will hurt sites where blood is screened and tested for HIV,

Hepatitis and other diseases.

PEPFAR is the cornerstone of US global health assistance, which supports HIV/Aids treatment, testing and counseling for millions of people worldwide.

“The 18 national testing laboratories sites in the country have run out of the automated screening reagent — Abbott 800 — which means we are running a manual platform which has slowed down blood screening in hospitals,” Mr Wang’endo said.

Only two of the six national centres — Nairobi and Nakuru — are currently screening blood, and with the manual procedures, the centres can only process 270 pints per day compared to the 800 on automation.

The funding hitch comes at a time the country is facing a chronic shortage of blood, since the collection of blood has been plagued by lack of funds for screening tools and human resources to collect and store blood.

A research project — Project 47 — by the Ministry of Health and whose data has not been published yet, shows that while two in five of the hospitals (40 percent) had a functional theatre, they lacked blood banks.

Dr Wachira Wambugu of Aga Khan University Hospital who was part of the research project says inadequate blood could hurt surgeries.

Occasionally, the government in partnership with other organisations runs, blood donation drives to replenish stocks, which come in handy especially during emergencies.

Kenyatta National Hospital, a key referral facility nationally and across the region, Bloodlink found, will be the most affected institution with a huge daily demand for transfusion.

From 2004 to 2008, PEPFAR has given Sh7.25 billion, supporting everything that goes into the blood services.