A National Blood Policy and National Blood Standards developed with the support of the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), were also unveiled.
Douglas Mombeshora, the Deputy Health and Child Welfare minister said there was now a requirement for complete control of laboratory processes and testing procedures to timeously provide useful and good quality results.
“These are set out in the document which states minimum guidelines for medical research laboratories and testing sites,” Mombeshora told guests at the launch.
He said the structure of the guidelines aims to assist clinical laboratories with information on how they will be applied and emphasises on the need by medical laboratory institutions to endeavour to comply for the purposes of registration, certification and accreditation.
“Zimbabwe has never had a national blood policy and this is the first of its kind,” he said. “The blood policy encompasses the whole process, from collections, right up to the point of transfusion.”
