Nigeria
Safe Blood for Africa helped to re establish the NNBTS – Nigerian National Blood Transfusion Service with a USAID grant. After significant growth of the program, Safe Blood for Africa transferred the original center it developed as a demonstration project, as well as operation of the expanded program, to the Nigerian Ministry of Health in 2007. Technical assistance and training has been funded by the U.S. CDC through the PEPFAR program and the Exxon Mobil Corporation. Safe Blood for Africa has been managing the program since 2003. Expansion of the initial program has lead to a partnership between the Nigerian Ministry of Health, the CDC and USAID and ExxonMobil to expand the program in Nigeria to the current development of 12 Zonal Blood Centers, with additional Centers to become operational soon. Since 2003 Safe Blood for Africa has trained, with funding from ExxonMobil, over 1000 Blood Service and healthcare staff in providing a safe blood supply. With the support of ExxonMobil, SBFA has provided HIV test kits to hospitals in areas of Nigeria where previously there had been no capacity to do even minimal testing. SBFA’s Abuja office is now supporting the NNBTS by providing technical assistance, mainly in the form of training in all areas of blood safety. SBFA assisted the government of Nigeria in establishing its National Blood Transfusion Policy.
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Botswana
Safe Blood for Africa has been working in Botswana since 2000 in two major areas of HIV prevention: development of a youth program, and by providing technical assistance to the Botswana National Blood Transfusion Service. SBFA has assisted with increasing the quality and quantity of safe blood for Botswana by providing the required training. Since SBFA entered Botswana, the blood supply has increased by over 100% and the HIV infection rate among donors has decreased from 9% to less than 2%. With the initial Gates Foundation and Merck Foundation assistance, Safe Blood for Africa established a Pledge 25 program to encourage HIV prevention among the Botswana youth. Currently Safe Blood for Africa is providing technical assistance and training in Botswana in all areas of blood safety, including quality systems, laboratory data base management, donor recruitment and appropriate utilization of blood under the U.S. CDC PEPFAR program.

Multi Country Regional Training Program
Safe Blood for Africa has provided training to healthcare professionals in over 27 African countries in several areas of blood safety. Training includes courses in:
• Donor recruiting - promoting voluntary non-remunerated blood donations
• providing HIV testing and other appropriate test kits and materials,
• quality management systems,
• testing and blood grouping,
• promotion of appropriate clinical use of blood,
• donor care, donor sensitivity and donor management,
• laboratory procurement, blood bank management and finance
• National Policy Development and National Strategic Planning
This program has been sponsored by the U.S. CDC PEPFAR Program.

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African Club 25 Society

This youth HIV prevention program provides an organized forum encouraging young people to avoid HIV infections by promoting health life styles through continuous education and training, and organized activities with a targeted partnership, to become repeat voluntary non remunerated blood donors. It also provides Club members with a feeling of empowerment – that they can control not only their own health, but also save someone else’s life. While the Club 25 concept did not originate with SBFA, SBFA has expanded the original program and is providing an organized framework for all African Club 25’s to operate, continent-wide. The African Club 25 Society has membership from 15 African countries which collectively have over 62,000 active youth participants. Club 25 is a youth blood donor club for young people between the ages of 16 and 25 years old, who commit to donating blood 25 times in their lifetime. Club 25 Members pledge to donate blood regularly and to maintain a healthy lifestyle, free of HIV. In additional to providing safe blood, this is a highly effective HIV prevention program targeted at the youth. Please visit our website at www.africanclub25society.org.

One Million African Lives Initiatives
The NBA Star and 2005 Rookie of the Year, Emeka Okafor, has partnered with the Safe Blood for Africa Foundation to help raise awareness and assist in the elimination of the spread of HIV infection through the transfusion of infected blood. This program seeks to save 1 million lives over the next five years by providing testing kits to screen all donated blood, technical training to ensure the test kits are used correctly, and to promote clinical education to medical personnel to ensure that blood is only used for the correct clinical indications to save lives or prevent serious complications and consequent debility. All the strategies adopted by SBFA are those of recognized and approved international organizations and agencies developed to ensure a safe, adequate and accessible supply of blood and blood products .
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African Institute for Trandfusion Medicine
Safe Blood for Africa has supported the establishment of the African Institute for Transfusion Medicine (the Institute -AITM) in partnership with WHO, and other international and African organizations. SBFA is supporting AITM through scholarships and fund raising for grants and training programs. These program are aimed at capacity building and educational courses to develop Leadership and Management in Blood Services. The need for such an organization had been identified in order to provide higher-level education, training and development guidance for leaders from Blood Services in African countries. This will lead to facilitating the strengthening and development of independent and sustainable blood services in Africa. The Institute will complement other efforts to improve health services in Africa. The purpose of the Institute is to establish a sustainable and continuing professional development program in Africa for leaders, managers, clinicians and staff in blood services. It will build capacity to provide sufficient committed donors and to provide safe, appropriate clinical blood transfusion for patients. The Institute has been developed with advisors from the international blood transfusion community including World Health Organization, the South Africa National Blood Service (SANBS), the National Blood Service of the United Kingdom, the International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT), the Malawi Blood Transfusion Service (MBTS), the National Blood Service (Zimbabwe), The American Association of Blood Banks (AABB), International Development of Transfusion Medicine (IDTM), Groningen, Netherlands and Safe Blood for Africa.
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The Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Safe Blood for Africa program has a four year emergency program to assist the Congo in safeguarding its blood supply. The program is providing technical assistance and training in blood safety and distributing test kits to 57 health center facilities in the DRC The program is providing 4 test kits to be used before a blood transfusion in order to prevent disease transmission as a result of the transfusion. The blood will be tested for HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and Syphilis. In addition, training in blood safety, Voluntary non remunerated donor recruitment , quality control, testing and strategic planning and national strategies will be provided. Safe Blood will be distributing over 550,000 test kits during this program. This program is supported by USAID, the One Million African Lives Initiative and the manufactures of the test kits.
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Angola
Through an ExxonMobil five-year grant, Safe Blood for Africa has been providing technical assistance, training and HIV test kits to secure a safe blood supply in Angola. This program has received additional support from the EU and other donors. Intensive training of the Blood Transfusion Staff in the recruitment of voluntary non-remunerated blood donors and in quality management has been conducted. The SBFA team has conducted situation analyses in two of the Angolan Provinces on the existing blood safety procedures in the provinces.
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Lesotho
The Safe Blood for Africa program is providing a trained donor recruiter to the Lesotho Blood Service to increase their voluntary non-remunerated blood donations. This Safe Blood for Africa program has increased the volume of voluntary non-remunerated blood donations by over 100% since its inception. SBFA has facilitated the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Lesotho Blood Transfusion Service and the Lesotho Red Cross Society, whereby the Red Cross youth volunteers have been trained in donor recruitment skills and provided with the knowledge to enable them to recruit voluntary non-remunerated blood donors from the outlying districts. The Lesotho Blood Transfusion Service will conduct blood donor clinics to collect blood from these donors. This program has been supported by the One Million African Lives Initiative and the U.S. CDC PEPFAR program.
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Equatorial Guinea
This five year program has been supported by ExxonMobil to provide technical assistance, equipment, training and test kits, to all the major hospital centers with cooperation of the Equatorial Guinea Ministry of Health. Since the inception of the program, testing of transfused blood has reached 100% from the initial situation of zero percentage being tested.
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