Former Kenya Red Cross Secretary General Abbas Gullet was on Monday, April 27 unveiled by Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe as the Chairperson of the Advisory Committee on Supply and Utilization of Blood and Blood Products.
The committee was inaugurated at the Ministry of Health's Afya House headquarters in Nairobi, right before the daily government briefing on the Covid-19 pandemic.
Other members of the committee are former ICT Permanent Secretary Bitange Ndemo, Dr. Patricia Murugami, Dr. Peter Kibet Shikuku and Dr. Elizabeth Wala.
Charles Rombo, Kiprono Chepkok and Dr. Thuranira Kaugiria will serve as the Joint Secretaries to the committee.
Gullet served for 46 years as the Secretary-General of Kenya Red Cross and only retired in November 2019.
His tenure was associated with a robust approach by the Red Cross to several humanitarian crises in the country, with Gullet credited with spearheading many community-based initiatives over the years.
The blood advisory committee's core mandate will be to advise the government on matters pertaining to blood supply, particularly those directly affecting the practice of transfusion medicine in hospitals and health centres around the country.
The group is also expected to come up with effective designs of communication to facilitate the mobilization of donors.
According to a gazette notice published on Friday, April 24, the committee will also facilitate knowledge management and ensure the availability of information and accurate data on blood and blood products' utilization management practices.
The committee will notably be expected to design a data management framework capable of computing disaggregate needs for blood and blood products in every health facility in the country.
In addition, the committee was tasked with playing a supportive role in the development of guidelines and manuals for the use of blood products.
The committee was also mandated to institutionalize blood management with a view to involving county governments and was given leeway to monitor standards in respect of blood donor recruitment, collection, testing, processing, storage, imports, exports, issuance of distribution of blood and blood products.
The committee's biggest challenge will be to end the perennial shortage of blood and blood products in Kenya; with many patients in need of transfusions unable to access the same at local health facilities.
Speaking after the inauguration ceremony, Kagwe disclosed that the establishment of the committee was part of the government's plan to create an institutional framework to facilitate efficient management of blood supply in the country.
"We are going to centralize all blood activities into one, and there will be no blood activities going on without the auspices of this framework.
"Anything going on currently must now be brought in into the institutional framework that we have built," he stated.
Kagwe further referenced the Kenya National Blood Transfusion Service Bill sponsored by Murang'a Woman Representative Sabina Chege, noting it had gone through the first reading in Parliament.
He urged members of the public to contribute their views on the bill, further noting several recommendations he argued would help create the efficient blood management system Kenya needs.
Among his recommendations was for the country to incentivize blood donations and to create systems to monitor blood supply levels in addition to managing the country's blood storage, supply and distribution.
