Zimbabwe: NBSZ continues operations in Malaria free zone
By Alfred Tembo – Amid revelation that National Blood Services Zimbabwe (NBSZ) is continuously acquiring state of the art medical equipment to keep up with changing trends in the health sector, the organisation has no immediate future plans to set foot in malaria zone says an a senior official from the organisation revealed.
The organisation has lately been appealing for mobility of youth and adult donor community to be pro-active and forthcoming in the national call of serving lives by donating blood as a way of contributing to boosting the blood banks.
The organisation stamped its foot on maintaining the status quo citing that it is committed to upholding its long standing tradition of credibility than leaning on the availability of such resourceful people in place such as Zambezi Valley, Gonorezhou and Kariba among other parts of the country that may result in compromising its outstanding contributions to the health sector.
Speaking to Daily News, at the Midlands headquarters in Gweru, the provincial public relations officer said moving into these neglected virgin zones pauses a stumbling block that may put to risk lives of many people seeking such precious fluids if not properly done.
“The NBSZ centres across the country are being equipped with up to date equipment to ensure efficiency and accurate results.
“Despite these developments we will continue bleeding people in malaria free areas, this will keep our cost of processing the blood relatively low and ascertain our ability to deliver safe blood for the nation,” said Aggrey Ngazana.
Ngazana was quick to say although it is possible to get donated blood and process it to meet required standards it is risky.
“We have not moved into these areas, as a control measure of avoiding incidents where patients are given malaria infected blood during transfusion. However since its risky to carry out such a move was suspended as a preventive measure,” Ngazana added.
NBSZ has over the years gained popularity for its credibility and quality following a distinguished record that confirms the organisation’s principled move where they held firm on the adopted motion of having donated blood tested for HIV/AIDS and screening alongside Germany and Sweden. In addition the organisation which will soon improve its testing methods from the current Serology testing to Nucleic acid, established Pledge 25, a club of young out of high school blood donors committed to save lives through donating safe blood and promote healthy lifestyle a campaign that has since been copied into at least 52 other countries across the world.
Ngazana announced that NBZS will soon be accredited with Southern Africa Accreditation Society for ISO 15189 for proficiency, competency and testing system and for good practices.
