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Around 118.5 million blood donations are collected annually to save precious lives. The donated blood may also be associated with blood-borne infections. With around 247 million population, Pakistan is an endemic country for viral hepatitis, and there is a high risk of having asymptomatic blood donors among healthy donors. Viral hepatitis is 2.5% prevalent in the general population, and blood donation and its screening have become grave health concerns for Pakistani health authorities. Asymptomatic viral hepatitis needs screening to rule out subliminally diseased individuals, as recommended by the World Health Organization. Knowing the prevalence of the transfusion transmissible infectious (TTIs) agents in healthy blood donors helps assess the disease burden in any population, boosts treatment rates, and precludes dreaded complications in the affected people. The objective of the current study was to determine the prevalence and trends of significant TTIs among blood donors visiting the Armed Forces Institute of Transfusion (AFIT), Rawalpindi, Pakistan. A total of 15,405 blood donors were screened for HBV, HCV, HIV, malaria, and syphilis during this cross-sectional descriptive study. Most donors had an O-positive blood group; AB-negative donors were only 0.7%. Out of the study population, we reported 1.06% HBV, 0.54% HCV, 0.19% HIV, and 0.31% syphilis-positive asymptomatic blood donors. However, no blood donor was found positive for malaria. The Punjab province was reported as the most burdened for TTIs, and youngsters aged 18–27 years were mainly positive, indicating the need to conduct national-level awareness campaigns about TTIs. The stakeholders need to strengthen the blood collection guidelines, and effective performance should be strictly monitored through internal and external audits considering the aim of reaching non-infectious blood products. Full article

The established blood donation and transfusion system has contributed a lot to human health and welfare, but for this system to function properly, it requires a sufficient number of healthy donors, which is not always possible. Pakistan was a country hit hardest by COVID-19 which additionally reduced the blood donation rates. In order to address such challenges, the present study focused on the development of RBC substitutes that can be transfused to all blood types. This paper reports the development and characterization of RBC substitutes by combining the strategies of conjugated and encapsulated hemoglobin where magnetite nanoparticles would act as the carrier of hemoglobin, and liposomes would separate internal and external environments. The interactions of hemoglobin variants with bare magnetite nanoparticles were studied through molecular docking studies. Moreover, nanoparticles were synthesized, and hemoglobin was purified from blood. These components were then used to make conjugates, and it was observed that only the hemoglobin HbA1 variant was making protein corona. These conjugates were then encapsulated in liposomes to make negatively charged RBC substitutes with a size range of 1–2 μm. Results suggest that these RBC substitutes work potentially in a similar way as natural RBCs work and can be used in the time of emergency. Full article