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Affiliation: The authors are afilliated with department of National Blood Transfusion Service in Tanzania. Author 1 is serves as medical laboratory scientist, author 2 holds a managerial position at National Blood Trnsfusion Service. The authors have no further conflict of interest to disclose.
Background: Blood component preparation was developed in 1960 to separate blood products from one-unit whole blood by a specialized equipment called a Refrigerated Centrifuge. Blood components are separated from whole blood within 24 hours after collection. According to Africa Society of Blood Transfusion (AfSBT) Standards"; If a facility plans to use red cells only and to discard the plasma, the separation step can be performed at any point up to the expiry date unless an additive solution is being used, in which case separation must occur within a maximum of 7 days of collection, in conformance with manufacturer"s instructions. In the Northern Tanzania, it is only NZBTC which is capable of producing Packed Red Cells(PRCs), Fresh Frozen Plasma(FFP) and Platelets(PLT) by using all the two methods mentioned above.
Methods: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study that analyzed blood components production data extracted from Blood Established Computer System (BECS) - eDelphyn
Results: A total of 17,754 units of blood were collected for the period of 2 years whereby 11,169 (63%) of blood components were produced from these units. In 2021 and 2022, 7,491 and 10,263 units were collected for each year whereby 5,771 (77.03%) and 5,398 (52.6%) of PRCs were produced respectively. For the year 2021, FFPs and PLTs produced were 2,261(30.2%), and 586 (7.8%) respectively while 1,720 (22.9%) were whole blood units. In 2022 components produced were 2,545 (24.8%) and 494 (4.8%) for FFPs and PLTs respectively and 4,865 (47.4%) remained as whole blood units.
Conclusions: PRCs is the most common blood product produced followed by FFPs and PLTs respectively. Rate of blood components produced decreased in 2022 (PRC, FFP and PLT respectively) due to increased collection but not on components production capacity. The facility should ensure that all units collected are converted into blood and blood components as per AfSBT standard requirements. All necessary resources for blood component productions should be reliably available throughout the time including availability of the double/triple blood bags.