— Welcome,
About Us
To provide through regulation and coordination, safe, quality, and adequate blood in an equitable and cost-effective manner to all people resident in Nigeria.
To have a national blood transfusion system that ensures safety, quality, and accessibility of blood and blood products to all resident in Nigeria, in compliance with international standards and acknowledged as one of the best in Africa.
MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR GENERAL
“Working with a team of dedicated blood service professionals at the National Blood Service Agency (NBSA), it is my vision to realize a national blood system in Nigeria which is responsive to the blood needs of the populace through effective coordination, and regulation to ensure availability and accessibility of safe, quality blood and blood products down to each community.”
PROF. SALEH YUGUDA.
Director General
The National Blood Service Agency (NBSA) is the government institution charged with the responsibility of regulating, coordinating, and providing safe, adequate and quality blood and blood products for transfusion in a cost-effective manner to all who may require it in Nigeria with an emphasis on voluntary non-remunerated blood donation in order to save lives across the country.
The operations of the National Blood Service Agency (NBSA) commenced in 2005 as National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS), by means of a multilateral partnership between the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and the United States Government (USG) through the United States (U.S) President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The legal framework that established the NBTS is the National Health Act (NHAct) of 2014, which in Section Vi, Sub-section 47-53, provides for the creation of NBTS as follows “The Minister shall establish a National Blood Transfusion Service for the Federation.” The National Blood Service Agency (NBSA) bill was signed into law on the 29th of July 2021 to strengthen the NHAct 2014 and to enable the service to function as a commission.
The NBSA relies on a pool of regular donations by voluntary, unpaid blood donors and currently collects and screens approximately 25,000 units of blood collected from voluntary unpaid donors each year and these units of blood are made available to patients following request from about 3,400 hospitals across Nigeria. Currently, less than 5% of the total blood donation are sourced from voluntary donors in Nigeria, and the rest are commercially, subjecting recipients to the risk of infections such as HIV, hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, syphilis and others. Nationally, an estimated 1,230,000 units of blood are collected across several facilities each year, 90% of which are from paid commercial donors. Owing to the risk of transfusion of unsafe blood in Nigeria, NBSA seeks to reduce HIV and other blood borne infections and reduce “preventable” deaths due to emergencies involving blood transfusion by ensuring a safe and adequate blood supply in-country.
The NBSA has successfully established 17 blood collection, testing, and distribution centres in the 6 geo-political zones of the country, including the Federal Capital Territory and an Armed Forces Blood Service located in Military Hospital Port-Harcourt. The process of scaling up these services to more States and Local Government levels of the federation is still on-going.
The screening of blood using the 4th generation enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) has been upgraded in all the NBSA Centre’s to Chemiluminescence using Architect i1000-SR by Abbot systems, thus enhancing the quality and proficiency of screening for the four WHO-mandated transfusion-transmissible infection namely HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and syphilis.
Our History
Blood transfusion ensures the provision of safe, adequate, and quality blood and blood products for all patients requiring transfusion at the right time for the right reasons. Blood transfusion in colonial Nigeria was fragmented, haphazard, unregulated and whose safety could not be guaranteed. Nigeria became an independent sovereign nation on the 1st of October 1960 with just one University Teaching Hospital and numerous General or District hospitals across the country.
The idea of a National Blood Transfusion Service was first mooted in post-independence Nigeria during the regime of Late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, first Prime Minister of Nigeria whose Minister of Health was Dr Moses Adekoyejo Majekodunmi. Blood banking activities were subsequently carried out in the Blood Transfusion Unit of the Pathology Laboratory through Lagos Island Maternity Hospital, which also provided blood for patients in the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, the Massey Street Children Hospital, the Military Hospital Yaba, the Creek Hospital and numerous private health facilities in the Lagos area. At that time, Lagos was the Federal Capital Territory and the Federal Ministry of Health was responsible for the provision of health services.
Even though the establishment of the National Blood Transfusion Service was as a result of the cooperative agreement (Co Ag) between Nigeria and the United States, the legal framework relied upon now is the National Health Act (NHAct) of 2014, which in section Vi, Sub-section 47-53 provides for the creation of the NBTS as follows- “The minister shall establish a National Blood Transfusion for the Federation.”
The National Blood Service Agency (NBSA) through the legal mandate of NBSA Act 2021 is charged with the responsibility of regulating, coordinating and provision of safe, quality blood and blood products for transfusion in a cost -effective manner to all who may require it in Nigeria with an emphasis on voluntary non-remunerated blood donors in Nigeria.
The NBSA has successfully established seventeen blood collection, testing and distribution centres in the six geo-political zones of the country including the FCT plus one Armed Forces blood service located in Military Hospital Port-Harcourt. The process of scaling up these services to more states and local government areas of the federation is still on-going.
