Do all countries test for HIV?
More than 85 million blood donations took place in 2007 across 162 countries, of which 41 lacked the resources to screen for transfusion-transmissible infections (TTIs).47 UNAIDS figures show only half of Pakistan's annual 1.5 million bags of transfused blood are screened48 and it is believed that 19 percent of new HIV infections in Pakistan are due to unsafe blood.49 50 Worryingly it is often countries with a high HIV prevalence that have inadequate screening programmes in place. In Tanzania, HIV prevalence is 5.7 percent and yet blood screening is extremely limited.51 For example, 2007 data shows only 125,000 of the 350,000 units of blood donated or 35.7 percent were screened for HIV and other TTIs.52
The situation in China during the early years of the epidemic highlights the need not only for voluntary, non-remunerated donors but also safe procedures for blood collection, testing and transfusion.53 Farmers from Henan province donated blood during the 1990s to collection sites where, to save money, the donors blood was pooled, the plasma extracted and then the remaining blood injected back into the donor.54 55 More than 100,000 farmers were infected with HIV in this way and unknowingly continued to donate infected blood, which was passed on through blood transfusion.
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