Study of Voluntary Blood Donors and Deferred Blood Donors- A Brief Review at the State of the Art Model Blood Bank, Guwahati, Assam

Blood donation is a very important life saving measure in current medical practice. At the same time, it also brings about a host of other complications like Transfusion Transmitted Infections, transfusion reactions, adverse donor reaction etc. In order to minimize such unwanted effects as well as to maintain blood safety in modern transfusion practice, it is important that donors and the collected blood or its products have to be screened thoroughly. It is simply when a prospective person is found to be unfit during first phase of counseling and medical examination is termed as deferral. It is important to know the pattern of deferral in a particular donor community so that donor screening can be more focused. The present study was carried out in State Of The Art Model Blood Bank, Gauhati Medical College and Hospital, (SOTAMBB, GMCH), Guwahati, from 1st January 2015 till 31st December 2015, with the main aim of investigating the deferral rate and the main causes of deferral. Out of 29773 donors 3393 were deferred. The most common causes were low hemoglobin (less than12.5gm/dl) high BP, alcohol intake within last 72hours, under weight (less than45kgs. ), under age (less than18years), jaundice, recent blood donation etc.