Thiruvananthapuram: The Government has decided to form Red Ribbon Clubs and voluntary blood donation forums in all colleges and schools to promote awareness of HIV prevention and encourage voluntary blood donation.

The clubs would be set up before September 30. This was decided at a meeting convened by the State AIDS Control Society (KSACS), under the chairmanship of Mohammed Riyassudin, Chief Secretary to the Government, here on Saturday.

The meeting was convened following a directive by Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss to rope in the youth for promoting the Safe Blood Donation Campaign. Safe blood transfusion was one of the important preventive measures adopted for the prevention of blood-borne infections such as Hepatitis B and HIV.

Joint initiative

The Red Ribbon Clubs would be set up by the KSACS with the assistance of Nehru Yuva Kendra, National Service Scheme, National Cadet Corps, Red Cross and other voluntary organisations working n the health sector.

The State required about three lakh units of blood annually. However, there was a huge gap between blood collection and demand, with only less than 1.5 lakh units being collected through blood banks.

Blood collection

KSACS hoped to increase blood collection to 75 per cent of the actual requirement within a year through massive awareness campaigns. By March 2008, the society hoped to achieve the target fully.

Blood safety could be improved only by encouraging voluntary blood donation.

At present, much of the blood collected in the blood banks was through replacement donation.

The campaigns would be organised at the district-level by the District Collectors, chairpersons of the district AIDS Control Committees.

The number of HIV-infected persons in the country today was 52 lakhs. About 90 per cent of the infected were in the productive age group of 15 to 49 years. About 32.2 per cent of the total infected were young men and women in the age group of 15 to 29 years.

Safe blood

The present campaign was aimed at improving the accessibility to safe blood. The Union Health Ministry was in the process of establishing blood collection and supply chains to ensure that safe blood was accessible within an hour to anyone requiring it.

The Ministry proposed to strengthen the hands of the Red Cross by giving financial assistance to run modern blood banks, establish blood collection and storage points and also oversee the functioning blood banks both in the private and public sectors.

Kerala had about one lakh HIV-infected population. The private sector could contribute by improving the management of sexually transmitted diseases and the accessibility to condoms. Collaboration was needed within the Health Department and with other departments like education, labour and social welfare.

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