Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

Tapping students for safe blood

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE Aug. 9. The Tamil Nadu AIDS Control Society is making efforts to ensure donation of safe blood and focus on increasing voluntary donation from 50 to 100 per cent.

The process of encouraging students was underway as they constituted a major chunk of voluntary donors with safe blood, the Project Director of the Society, R. Christodas Gandhi, told presspersons here today. ``This is the group most willing to donate spontaneously.''

To strengthen voluntary donation, a linkage among donors, institutions, blood banks and hospitals would be established.

The National Service Scheme Coordinators in universities have been made nodal officers. The aim was to have a systematic process of procuring blood through orderly conduct of donation camps.

The entire process would be regulated to ensure safe blood. ``Private blood banks cannot go about conducting camps at will. We have permitted only a few of them with a designated status, to hold camps.''

Mr. Gandhi said voluntary donation was safer as blood ``donated for a price'' carried risks. Students donated as much as 3.5-lakh units of blood a year of which 1.5-lakh units were distributed to blood banks in Chennai. This is just the supply quantity and the demand could not be assessed so far.

On the HIV incidence in the State, Mr. Gandhi said a fresh survey began on August 1 but the rate has been hovering around 1.2 to 1.5 per cent over the past four years. The incidence had been arrested through awareness drives.

However, anything above 1 per cent was at an epidemic level. The State had not been able to bring the incidence below the one per cent mark as the rate in the ``high-prevalence'' districts of Namakkal, Tiruchi, Salem, Tirunelveli and Madurai maintained the State average at the epidemic level.

As part of a special focus on these districts, the Government has sanctioned Rs.20 lakhs to each of them to form societies for the HIV infected persons on the lines of the self-help groups.

Community Care Centres being established for the infected persons in all districts would also be provided for the high-prevalence districts as well. Efforts were on to have hospice for patients set up by the non-Governmental organisations.

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