I lived my life all these years believing that preserving blood for years together is not possible. Or at least the cost is so high that it can never be done. I was living in ignorance. The truth is out and here it is - 'Red Blood Cells can be stored for tens of years together'.
Sankalp India Foundation got a phenomenally high number of blood requests for the Bombay blood group this year. Almost every second week we have been scrambling to find a donor or two for this group. So difficult is the sitaution that we have come extremely close to getting blood shipped from Mumbai more than once. So, what we started looking at is possible methods of preserving red blood cells of Bombay group phenotype for extremely long durations. If this is achieved, we will have an emergency stockpile of the extremely rare group and some lives wil be saved.
A few trips, calls and meethings and there we were - face to face with the perfect solution for preserving red cells. The total solution requires us to have an upfront capital of Rs 1,25,00,000/-. Yes, that's right. I made no mistake with zeros. Huh! Clearly it is a 'BIT' difficult to get this through.
So, the next thing I decided to do is to drill by head for any possible cost cutrting strategies.There is something about us Indians in general and Sankalp volunteers, in a more specific sense which makes us want to explore every option for saving a rupee. I could not believe what i got to understand after doing a few hours of googling. It was indeed possible to preserve red cells at a phenominally low price.
How it works?
what you must know is:
> If cells are frozen at -80 degree C, they can be stored for long durations of time
> Blood banks already have a refrigerator that maintains -80 degree C
The problem is that if you freeze the blood collected off the shelf, the water droplets bond together and form sharp crystals. These crytals destroy the tender cell membranes and render preservation useless. People ave found a perfect solution - 'Glycerol'. Is you store the red cells immersed not in water, but in glycerol, then there are no crystals and thereby you can save the red cells safely.
Pre process involved is as follows:
- Collect blood from the donor
- Store it in blood bank for a 3-4 of days
- Seperate the plasma out by centrifuging
- Add glycerol gradually and in steps
- Centrifuge and seperate excess glycerol
- Freeze the bag
at the time of recovery, we need to do several rounds of washing the red cells with saline. This clears the glycerol and the cells become useful again. The entire process is manual in this case.
Now, coming to the cost, it will cost about Rs 2000/- for glycerol and all other consumable put togteher shgould not cost more than Rs 500/-. So, you can freeze a unit of blood fotr Rs 2500/- now :)
The obvious question is why was the first solution so costly then? The point is that there is automatic equipment involved in that solution which prevents any exposure of cells to the atmosphere thus dramatically reducing the chances of contamination. It also requires lesser expertise and effort from the staff.
Medical studeies have bene done sufficient number of times at various places arond the world to validate this technique. So, blood is not erishable after all.
An action point for the reader here is inviting you to seek possibilities with this technique. Do comment and share how you think this technique can help save more lives.
Referances:
http://mahasbtc.aarogya.com/index.php/blood-bank/preservation-and-stora…
Sometimes I wonder what more lies inside there - in thse unseen vaults - which is not being put to use for benefit of mankind.