Daily Times

KARACHI: In order to achieve ‘foolproof blood screening’ Civil Hospital Karachi has upgraded the technology by shifting to Chemiluminescence Immunoassay (CLIA).

Civil Hospital Karachi, one of the largest public healthcare facility in Sindh, it is first public care health facility to introduce CLIA technology in the province. There are only few healthcare facilities which have CLIA technology mainly inthe private sector.

CLIA gives a more specific and clearer output, making the results more accurate than they ever were before.

The shift of technology was made possible through donations collected by Patients’ Welfare Association (PWA), a welfare organization at CHK run by volunteers of Dow Medical College. Formed in 1979, PWA is dealing with five departments namely; thalassaemia, blood bank, diagnostic laboratory, drug clinic and follow up clinics, providing free of cost treatment to patients.

“Total cost for purchasing CLIA kits per year is Rs. 33 million whereas on ELISA it was 22 million rupees. So we are facing financial constrains,” said Ifrah Humbel, PWA General Secretary.

“Blood donations are precious, and false results can lead to unnecessary wastage of healthy blood bags and also increases the risk of a diseased individual’s blood to pass through undetected. CLIA reduces this risk exponentially and displays overall better performance,” she added.

ELISA that was used for last eight years to screen blood bags that are donated at the PWA’s Blood Bank for diseases such as HIV, Hepatitis B, C etc. Although World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended ELIZA for third world countries but CLIA is more advanced. CLIA is 100,000 times more sensitive than ELISA. It has a better dynamic range and yields diagnostic results much faster.

For the widespread operations of the PWA blood bank, CLIA is crucial to have a foolproof blood screening mechanism in place. This is another dream come true for us, another step towards improving healthcare system.

Patients’ Welfare Association (PWA) is producing 80,000 blood bags per year.

“To meet extra financial burden caused by changing of technology, we appeal to philanthropists to donate to support our cause so that we can provide the patients with safer blood,” said President PWA Samra Siddique.