Blood safety in Africa paramount - Akosa

Accra, Oct. 6, GNA - Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), on Friday called for public education on the usefulness of safe blood and donation of blood in health care delivery.

There was also the need to promote health renewal in Africa through increased access to safe blood, he said, adding "This is paramount". The GHS Director-General was speaking at a workshop on Blood Safety in Africa for 11 Francophone countries including Togo, Mali, Cameroon and Burundi.

A similar workshop would be held for Anglophone countries in Accra from October 9 to October 13.

The workshop organised by the Safe Blood for Africa Foundation, an international nongovernmental organisation (NGO), aims at facilitating capacity building of Africa's blood transfusion services to deliver adequate and affordable safe blood through appropriate best practices. Prof. Akorsa said the safety and usefulness of blood was paramount to Africa, a continent where thousands of people died due to blood related problems and called on voluntary donors to maintain healthy lifestyles to ensure that transfusion units had the safest blood. Dr James Hasselt, Acting Executive Director for Safe Blood Foundation, Africa, said the workshop was aimed at building a culture of voluntary blood donation without reward in Africa.

This, he said, was difficult in developing countries where basic needs had to be met. However, success stories in Malawi, South Africa and Botswana had shown that with the right message it could be achieved. He explained that in those countries, youth groups between the ages of 16 and 25 had formed "Club 25" which enabled them to donate blood voluntarily 25 times before age 25 as well as maintain healthy lifestyles.

Dr Hasselt said it was the desire of the Foundation to help and to support Africa to overcome the severe shortage of safe blood in its health care delivery.