title: Improving supply of safe blood and reducing cost of transfusion service through haemovigilance.
abstract: Availability of safe blood remains a major challenge for many developing countries. Unnecessary discontinuation of scarce blood is a major conduit of wastage of scarce blood, as well as man hours and funds. Haemovigilance is a national system of surveillance and alarm, from blood collection to the follow-up of the recipients, gathering and analysing all untoward effects of blood transfusion in order to correct their cause and prevent recurrence. A prospective study to audit discontinuation of blood transfusion at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Ile-Ife over a period of one and half years was done. Simple febrile non-haemolytic transfusion reaction (FNHTR) was the leading indication for such discontinuation (66.7%). More than half of discontinued transfusion due to FNHTR (58%) was successfully completed on review by trained personnel in transfusion medicine. A system of haemovigilance if incorporated into the blood transfusion service will promote effective monitoring of blood transfusion and reduce wastage of scarce blood/blood products.
authors.affiliation: Department of Haematology and Blood transfusion Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria.
authors.forename: O P
authors.initials: OP
authors.lastname: Arewa
mesh_terms: D001771:Blood Banks / Q000592:standards*; D001803:Blood Transfusion / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards; D005334:Fever / Q000453:epidemiology; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D008485:Medical Audit / Q000191:economics*; D009549:Nigeria / Q000453:epidemiology; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D065227:Transfusion Reaction