The South African National Blood Service (SANBS) is highlighting the serious dangers involved in the reported practice of “bluetooth” which refers to injecting drug users injecting themselves with blood drawn from another user who has recently taken the drug nyaope.
Dr Jackie Thomson, Medical Director of SANBS urges the public against the practice, which has two-fold dangers:
As previously highlighted in media reports, the risk of transmitting a blood-borne virus or pathogen is greatly increased when passing infected blood from one directly into the vein of another person. This is particularly a risk in South Africa which has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world.
Mixing incompatible blood types can be fatal.
“Transfusing blood from one person to another in clinical settings is a very precise process and healthcare professionals ensure that the patient receives the right type of blood.
“Checks and tests needed to establish blood types are obviously not available to members of the public – including injecting drug users – and there is a real threat that the wrong and incompatible blood type is infused to the other person.
“This can cause different reactions including an attack on the immune system and severe blood clotting – resulting in various emergencies including shock, jaundice, collapse of the circulatory system, organ failure and death,” says Dr Thomson.
SANBS – and other blood transfusion services – carefully screen donors’ blood types so that each unit which is prepared for transfusion is correctly marked. Due to differences in antigens contained in the blood, which trigger different antibody responses, there are eight blood types: A+, A-, B+, B-, AB+, AB-, O+ and O-.
The most common blood type in South Africa is O+ and the rarest is AB-. Two blood types (O- and O+) are known as ‘universal donors’ as their blood can be given to any other ABO group.
SANBS also tests every donation for common blood-borne infections, HIV, syphilis, and Hepatitis B and C, to reduce risk of infection during the transfusion process.
Dr Thomson says: “Giving a mismatched unit of blood is fatal and we will never allow this. As SANBS, we call on the health and social service providers to urgently find ways to help injecting drug users in order to improve their safety – and to protect the broader public.”
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