Media Release
Udupi, Apr 30: Kasturba Hospital, Manipal Blood Center organized international webinar series for three days in association with World Health Organization. This three-day webinar (April 27-29) series aimed to impart quality information to the health care providers engaged in blood transfusion services in the countries of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Maldives, Nepal.
Regional advisor of WHO-SEARO, Dr Aparna Singh Shah, addressing the audience during the opening session said, "The main objective of this event is to provide technical guidance and training to upgrade the quality of testing of transfusion transmissible infections."
Dr Sharath Rao, dean of Kasturba Medical College, Manipal said, "Though the world around us stands still during this pandemic I am happy that as healthcare professionals, instead of taking a step back we are trying our level best to update ourselves to be at par with the latest information, technology, and resources."
Dr Shamee Shastry, director of the blood centre had taken this initiative to collaborate with the Asian Association of Transfusion Medicine to hold the online pilot training program of the World Health Organization. A total of 191 blood centre officials, technical people from SEAR countries have actively participated in the program. Speaking on the occasion she said, "For ensuring blood safety, considerable care and precautions must be implemented at each step of the blood transfusion process starting from blood collection from the donors to transfusion to the recipients. A prominent part of these processes is the screening of transfusion transmissible infections. Hence profound consideration shall be given for the quality assurance of infection screening which is the need of the hour."
This training series offered interesting and informative lecture sessions, panel discussions, and demonstration videos and 38 speakers from across the world contributed to the program. Resource persons from National Reference Laboratory, Australia which is the WHO-Collaborating Center have shared their knowledge and expertise.
Mutana, COO and Dr Avinash Shetty, medical superintendent of Kasturba Hospital appreciated the efforts made by the team of Kasturba Hospital Blood Center in organizing such an international webinar series.