NEWS AND VIEWS: Safe blood banks for Ukraine are goal of new foundation (09/04/05)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Safe blood banks for Ukraine are goal of new foundation

by Michael Komanowsky

HIV/AIDS is relatively new in Ukraine, appearing there as late as the mid-1990s. However, it has risen considerably between 1995 and 2002, and it continues to rise, as reported by the World Health Organization (WHO), at an exponential rate. It has doubled in the three years since 2002, spreading quickly - primarily due to intravenous drug use and rather limited efforts to control it.

Since the year 2001, Ukraine has had the highest rate of HIV infection among European countries. Even though HIV endangers both the social and economic development of the country, the government of Ukraine and other sectors of society have not responded quickly and forcefully enough to avert the grave threat posed by it. Until now, the state health care system in Ukraine has been insufficiently funded, even as compared with the Eastern European and Central Asian regions.

In 2001 only 2.9 percent of Ukraine's gross domestic product was spent on public health, while the corresponding figure for the Russian Federation was 3.7 percent. Private purchase of health care, amounting to an additional 1.4 percent, while substantial, was also insufficient. Due to the government's neglect of public health, public awareness of HIV risk is low.

Whereas the prevalence of HIV infection in the whole country is presently estimated to be only about 1.4 percent, mostly among people younger than 30, the rate of growth of HIV by contaminated blood is becoming an ever-increasing factor. This is especially true in cities on the Black Sea, such as Odesa, as well as those along the Dnipro River, such as Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv, that are most readily accessible to drug trafficking from the east, via the Black Sea.

While blood transfusion is a common practice in Ukraine, 98 percent of Ukrainian donors are relatives of those who need blood transfusions. Processing of blood does not meet European safety standards; consequently, 60 percent of hemophilic children have AIDS.

In order to offset this grave problem, the Ukrainian Federation of America (UFA) contacted Jeffrey M. Bush, chairman and CEO of the Safe Blood International Foundation (SBIF), a U.S. based not-for-profit organization, who readily agreed to set up a charitable organization called Safe Blood Ukraine Foundation (SBUF) on request by Ukraine.

Dr. Zenia Chernyk and Vera Andryczyk, chairperson and president of UFA, respectively; former Rep. Charles F. Dougherty; Dr. Roxolana Horbova; Dr. Eugene Mochan, associate dean of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine; together with Dr. Andriy Sverstiuk, assistant professor, Hahneman University; and other board members of UFA formed the Safe Blood Ukraine Advisory Committee (SBUAC) that was involved with preliminary planning and was empowered by SBIF to inform the Ministry of Health of Ukraine that SBIF is willing to assist Ukraine in securing a safe blood supply, if requested to do so.

After two meetings between representatives of SBUAC (Dr. Horbova in Canada and Dr. Chernyk in Ukraine) and the health minister of Ukraine, Dr. Mykola Polishchuk, such a request was granted by the government of Ukraine.

The SBUAC endeavor is being supported by the first lady of Ukraine, Kateryna Yushchenko.

On September 17, the day when President Viktor Yushchenko will receive the Philadelphia Liberty Medal - an award given by the Philadelphia Foundation to recognize leadership in the pursuit of freedom - Mrs. Yushchenko will tour the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and attend a private meeting arranged by UFA with CEOs of all the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture anti-HIV medications, companies that produce medications for treating hemophilia, and companies that make chemotherapeutic agents for various forms of cancer. All of these companies are prepared to donate medications free of cost. The director of the Association of Public Health Laboratories and the director of Global Health will be present, along with representatives of charitable foundations that have been invited.

Presently SBIF conducts blood banking operation and management in 18 sub-Saharan countries of Africa, China and India. In each of these countries, the goal is to help secure a safe blood supply for blood transfusion and thereby halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and many other blood-borne diseases. This is readily accomplished using effective blood banking operations and testing procedures carried out by SBIF-trained local personnel using blood from non-remunerated volunteer blood donors.

In this effort, SBIF has received assistance from major international organizations such as the ExxonMobil Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Merck Pharmaceuticals, as well as from U.S. government agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

While SBIF plans ultimately to provide blood for transfusions in all of Ukraine, initial plans involve opening up blood banks in three oblasts following procedures and methods similar to those used in the countries mentioned above. Later these centers will become a nationwide network of blood centers.

To support this effort, SBUF will recruit and train a staff of blood testing technicians, blood collection experts and donor recruitment specialists and in this way create a functioning organization for carrying out safe collection, testing and distribution of blood and blood products.

Whereas donated blood is free of charge in the U.S., this will probably not be the case in Ukraine, where blood donation is not customary; consequently, there will be additional costs associated with recruiting and educating donors that will be provided by SBIF.

It would be beneficial if churches and charitable organizations and other non-governmental organizations in Ukraine were to become involved in changing the cultural attitudes of the population toward injecting drug users and HIV infected persons, in providing information about health implications of personal behavior (e.g., HIV awareness and prevention), as well as in convincing healthy individuals to offer blood for free, as is being done in the U.S. and many other countries. For these important educational purposes, especially the last one, funds will also be allocated by SBIF.

Fortuitously, the SBIF effort coincides well with the plans of the present government of Ukraine. According to Anatoli Chugriev, president of the Blood Services of Ukraine Association, the country is striving to bring its blood banking, blood processing and quality control up to European standards. There is hope among the population that the new government under President Yushchenko will soon bring about improvement in the health system.

Industrial ownership by a small number of owners, the so called oligarchs, and widespread corruption have produced a large gap between the very wealthy and the very poor that favors private medicine at the expense of tax-based or insurance-based systems. Consequently, Mr. Yushchenko's plans to rid Ukraine of oligarchs and corruption may increase tax revenues and may indeed permit the government to improve the health system and eventually become more involved in the fight with the ravages of AIDS.

Michael Komanowsky has an M.S. degree in chemical engineering. He is a retired long-time employee of the Eastern Regional Research Center of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Philadelphia.

| Home Page |