Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2012-05-23

Upgrading the National Blood Transfusion Services (NBTS) of Sri Lanka with state of the Art Technology giving special emphasis to Northern and Eastern Provinces under the Netherlands Assistance

- the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) of Sri Lanka is the sole supplier of blood to all Government Hospitals and the majority of private sector hospitals in the country. Among the major benefits of the above will be -

* introduction of ultra high sensitive test methods to minimize the threat of transmission of blood born infections; and,
* frozen red cell facility to enable the preservation of rare blood types up to 10 years. With the existing facilities the maximum life for red blood cells is 42 days. The proposed frozen red cell facility would preserve the red cells up to a period of 10 years.
The proposal made by Hon. Maithripala Sirisena, Minister of Health, on the recommendations of the Standing Cabinet Appointed Procurement Committee (SCAPC), to accept the project proposal submitted by a company in Netherlands to upgrade the blood transfusion services at a cost of US $ 32,634,979.58, to provide domestic funds in 2013 for local taxes etc. and to enter into relevant agreements, was approved by the Cabinet.