The South African National Blood Service (SANBS) is to unveil new models for testing the safety of blood supplies which does not include a racial profile, the organisation said on Monday.
”On Tuesday we are meeting the Department of Health in Cape Town… and are going to present some models,” said Professor Anthon Heyns, chief executive of the service.
The development of a new model follows a furore last year when it became publicly known that race was among a check list of factors that determined the safety of donated blood and the possible presence of diseases like HIV/Aids.
The system meant that blood donated by black people fell into the higher risk categories. In the system used by the SANBS, regular donors who were white or Indian were deemed Category 1 — at lowest risk of HIV or other diseases — while black donors were classified as either Category 3 or 4, because HIV and hepatitis were thought to be ”more widespread” among them.
Heyns would not elaborate on the new models.
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian Online last year, Heyns said that he was not a racist and that the SANBS was not a racist organisation..
”Our statistics show that there is a strong correlation between demography and the prevalence of HIV/Aids,” he said.
”When the seriousness of the HIV/Aids pandemic became clear around 1992, we started working on a model through which we could guarantee a safe and secure blood supply — a model that would minimise the risk of transfusing blood that was in the window period. It might have been naive to look at race.”
”The Department of Health was very much involved in developing this system. In 1998 and in 2000, it signed reports and documents. The government actually agreed with the racial profiling as a method to minimise the risk of transferring HIV through blood transfusions.” – Sapa