Blood donor notification: Boon for the community, bane for blood donors, and blood centers?

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Altruism, warm glove, kinship and a sense of duty are the primary driving forces behind blood donation. The concept of donor cycle starts with donor recruitment and ends with donor retention and recall or with notification of sero-reactive donors. Donor Selection criteria vary from country to country and from region to region. Blood donor counseling is a confidential dialogue between the donor and a trained counselor aimed at ensuring the safety of donors and health of recipients. Predonation counseling covers modes of transmission of HIV, tests carried out on donated blood, confidentiality of test results, information on alternate testing sites and confidential self exclusion. Counseling during donation helps allay fears and is likely to reduce the incidence of adverse reactions in the donor. Post donation counselling aims at educating the donors on the interval between donations, care of the phlebotomy site, special instructions in case of adverse events and specific instructions depending on their job, besides nutritional /medical advice to deferred donors. Posttest counseling and notification of reactive donors is essential for the health of the donor and his family, prevention of diseases, improving blood bank economy by avoiding wastage of blood, and reducing exposure to healthcare workers. Problems in notification are diverse. It creates donor anxiety and suicidal tendencies in some. The kits used in a blood centre may give false positive results. NAT reactivity, with sero-negativity further compounds the problem. Response rate to notification is often poor. All these have made donor notification a boon for the community, but a bane for blood donors and blood centers. Every country must evolve specific guidelines for donor notification. This paper discusses Indian Guidelines for Blood donor counseling and sero-reactive Donor Notification.