KNH’s latest, fully-automated blood bank instrument (Immucor Neo Iris)

By Joel Stephen Mukaya

Kenyatta National Hospital, being one of the largest referral health facilities in the region and especially with the high number of its specialty clinics, blood transfusion is a common and key procedure in treatment and medical interventions.

In December 2022, the hospital acquired an advanced version of the NEO Galileo machine which is already in operation.

An analysis in 2020 found that about 40 percent of hospital admissions were based on maternity, oncology, and other disorders. This excludes the admissions or patients due to other reasons of accident emergencies. In addition, the report showed that 100 percent of new admissions get a blood typing to determine the blood group and a blood antibody screening.

The sensitivity of blood transfusion and the risks to be eliminated and checked and the workload of the facility could only be handled by blood bank automation.

Apart from testing of infectious diseases on donated blood for transfusions like Hepatitis B, C, E, syphilis, and HIV/AIDS, the blood sample undergoes some other comprehensive and sensitivity confirmation before the final transfusion to a recipient (patient).

Depending on the case of transfusion, at least six other tests are done on the donated blood sample to determine the safety of the blood to the recipients. These include blood group testing, Rhesus testing, antibody screening, weak D testing (on RH-VE blood), IgG DAT, and crossmatch or compatibility testing.

The complexity and sensitivity of a transfusion procedure allow no room for error or even delay from the blood donation room to the lab testing and the final transfusion procedure.

Neo iris is a fully automated blood bank equipment that can do all the pre-transfusion tests in a blood bank testing laboratory. Just like Immucor ® is the leading manufacturer globally in both transfusion and organ transplant medicine, Neo Iris is the most productive, fully-automated blood bank instrument with the highest type and screen throughput in the market.

The equipment uses CAPTURE ®, a patented technology to its manufacturer IMMUCOR® which is ranked as the most sensitive and highly accurate principle in the market to detect the most clinically significant antibodies in the blood.

Neo Iris is a ‘Next Generation of equipment with high productivity and throughput allowing a dynamic workflow and resource handling, improved flexibility for emergency testing, continuous loading of

“ Neo iris is a fully automated blood bank equipment that can do all the pre-transfusion tests in a blood bank testing laboratory. Just like Immucor ® is the leading manufacturer globally in both transfusion and organ transplant medicine, Neo Iris is the most productive, fully-automated blood bank instrument with the highest type and screen throughput in the market.” additional samples as others proceed with testing as well as more customized profiles.

The principle and technology of the equipment allow the use of fewer resources and consumables per test, hence cutting down on the cost of reagents and in turn enhancing costeffectiveness.

At a go, the equipment can support at least 165 blood samples in the improved sample rack loading bays.

The flexibility of the machine allows the running of the aforementioned tests as single tests or a combined series of tests per sample, allowing all the tests to be done on all the samples at a go. This increases the throughput as well as reduces the Turn Around Time on both the routine and emergency samples.

The identification of samples by unique barcodes by the equipment reduces significantly the mix-up of results and samples as a human error, which in turn could lead to fatal results due to erroneous transfusions.

Blood bank automation has, according to global statistics, reduced HTRs due to wrong or inaccurate transfusions by more than 80 percent.

Neo Iris provides more testing panels that will be of great significance as more procedures develop at KNH, such as more organ transplants.