Red Cross on hunt for type-A blood

Thai Red Cross Society is calling on people with blood of the A-type to make donations as it only has about 400 units in its stock.

The agency's director Soisa-ang Pikulsod told a seminar yesterday that so far, only 80 per cent of the donated blood underwent testing via the Nucleic Acid Amplification Technology (NAT). Hence, she said, in order to protect patients, Red Cross was going have all its centres use the NAT tests.

She said NAT testing on 3,758,833 units from 2009-2012 showed 34 units being HIV-positive, 11 had Hepatitis C and 1,489 had Hepatitis B.

She also explained that the agency refused to take blood from people of the homosexual orientation due to international regulations, not sexual bias.