NAT has already saved 21 lives from possible AIDS and other serious TTIs

Bhubaneswar Bureau

The Government should have thanked and felicitated Advocate Sujata Jena of Orissa High Court, as at least 21 unsuspecting patients have been saved from possible AIDS and/or other transfusion induced fatal diseases, because of NAT PCR used in blood screening in the Capital Hospital and two Government Medical Colleges at Burla and Berhampur, which could not have been possible, had Ms. Jena not convinced the Court in the case of a kid infected with AIDS by receiving blood on the operation table in matter of the necessity of NAT.

Had the Government provided the SCB Medical College Unit with Electric Backup to operate the system, many more persons could have received safe blood within this period.

The High Court on hearing Ms. Jena had issued a mandamus on 28 July 2011 directing that the “Government must ensure that in all the Blood Banks, the NAT PCR method is available to identify the virus of HIV during window period”.

As the government did not act in this regard, ORISSA MATTERS exposed the reluctance of the mandarins to implement the judicial direction, consequent upon which Mr. Prasad Harichandan, then Opposition Chief whip, raised the matter by way of an adjournment motion on Sepember 1, 2012. The Health Minister had assured the House in replying to the motion that the State shall certainly implement the Court Order and to begin with, shall commission the facility in four major Blood Banks covering the three Medical Colleges and the Capital Hospital.

But the habit of Orissa bureaucracy, which considers itself as superior to any power, took long four years to implement the most welfare judgment of the High Court of Orissa.

ORISSA MATTERS has been showing in these pages how the non-implementation of the judgment is creating more AIDS patients in Orissa through deficient blood screening.

However, the NAT system is installed in the above hospitals and a new era of safe bolld to patients has commenced.

NAT catches HIV+ shown negative
in ELISA test

Inaugurated in BIMSAR Burla on 7.6.2016, the NAT use was initiated on 14th June. Out of total 400 blood samples, which were shown negative in Elisa test, 2 samples have been caught as HIV+ in NAT test.

Similarly, in Model Blood Bank, Capital Hospital, Bhubaneswar, where the facility started functioning on 11.6.2016 after inauguration on 9th June, out of 850 samples tested so far, 2 samples have been marked HBV+ whereas one HBV+ has come out from 360 samples tested here by the BMC blood bank.

MKCG Medical College Blood Bank inaugurated on June 21, has caught 2HBV+ cases out of 413 samples since 23rd June.

Due to want of Electric Backup, which the government is to provide, despite the unit installed in SCB Medical College Blood Bank on 10th June, no NAT test has yet been possible.

However, from the above position, it is clear that, the NAT system has detected 2 numbers of HIV+ and 5 numbers of HBV+ within a small span of time from 14th June till date, which otherwise could have been taken by the patients as pure blood.

This means at least 21 persons have been saved from getting HIV+ and/or HBV+ blood, had the NAT not been installed. This is because, each unit of blood goes to three patients after it splits into components of platelets, plasma and packed RB cells.