Blood bank to be modernised with $ 32.6 m from Netherlands

On a proposal made by Minister of Health Maithripala Sirisena, the Cabinet of Ministers has given its approval to accept the project proposal submitted by a company in Netherlands to upgrade the blood transfusion services with state of the art technology at a cost of US $ 32.6 million.

The National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) of Sri Lanka is the sole supplier of blood to all Government Hospitals and the majority of private sector hospitals in the country.

Among the major benefits of the modernization will be introduction of ultra high sensitive test methods to minimise the threat of transmission of blood born infections; and, frozen red cell facility to enable the preservation of rare blood types up to 10 years. With the existing facilities the maximum life for red blood cells is 42 days. The proposed frozen red cell facility would preserve the red cells up to a period of 10 years.