PUNE: Blood banks in the state are now likely to get an additional test kit to check for infections, officials from the State Blood Transfusion Council said on Monday.
Current guidelines — by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation and the FDA — prescribe the use of ELISA tests to check for infections such as HIV, Hepatitis B (HBV) and Hepatitis C (HCV).
But a new test by the Pune-based Mylab — called the NATSpert ID tripleH detection kit — promises to enhance screening across the nearly 350 blood banks in the state. Mylab representatives said most blood banks currently rely on conventional or serological tests, which may miss HIV, HBV and HCV in blood.
“But the NATSpert ID TripleH Detection test is an RT-PCR test for the simultaneous screening of HIV, HBV and HCV in donated blood,” a representative said.
He added that the kit works like the RT-PCR test for Covid. “It does not give false negatives for blood testing as well. Over 1,50,000 units of blood have already been tested for HIV, HBV and HCV using NATSpert in India,” the MyLab representative said.
He explained that before NATSpert, blood banks used to test for infections using non-RT-PCR methods. “But these conventional methods may miss positive cases if the viral load is low or if the patient has been recently infected. Every year, thousands of people get HIV because they are transfused with infected blood,” he said.
The MyLab test kit received ICMR approval in early 2020. Currently, it’s the only Indian firm to have received approval for such a product. There are two multinational companies with a similar test kit.
Atul Kulkarni from the Jankalyan blood bank, said this can only be an additional test to enhance safety of donated blood.
“The Elisa test is mandatory while these are additional tests which can be used,” he said.
Dr Sheela Mundhada, medical director at the Jeevan Jyoti Blood centre in Nagpur, said they have already started use of the Mylab test. “The use of these test kits have commenced at our centre. These are advanced tests to help support safe blood transfusion,” she said.
