Through these short discussions, we try to understand what our customers think about us. Today, we are going to Conakry, Guinea (Africa) to meet Dr. Nyankoye Yves Haba, pharmacist-biologist and Director of Guinea’s National Center of Blood Transfusion since 2011.

The CNTS is the national blood transfusion service in Guinea, and is responsible for coordinating all the country’s blood transfusion facilities.

1. Could you explain what the activities of the center consists of?

We define the national blood transfusion strategy. At the same time, our operational activities include the collection, processing, storage, and distribution of blood for the Conakry region, as well as for other centers in the country. For the country, we have received around 85,000 blood donations in 2022 alone.

2. Why is there a need of cold storage in your business?

The blood we collect is solely and exclusively intended for blood transfusion, and must be stored at a temperature of between 2°C and 6°C. We have no fractionation center in Guinea, and also don’t have a highly developed blood distribution capability within the country. We have collection vehicles equipped with refrigerators for distribution, and we use isothermal containers for transport in the Conakry region. For the rest of the country, each structure collects, analyzes and stores blood until distribution. We therefore provide the transfusion centers with the equipment needed to enable them to safely store the bags.

We can store our bags for a maximum of 42 days for red blood cells and 35 days for whole blood. However, as we do not collect enough blood to meet the demand, so this maximum period is never reached. In most cases, blood is released within 10 days of collection.

3. Which products did you buy from B Medical Systems? For which purpose?

The CNTS has around ten refrigerators for blood storage, and we have 55 other decentralized transfusion structures in the country. At least half of these structures have 2 refrigerators, while the others have at least one.

We have purchased the MRB3000SDD solar-powered blood bank refrigerator. We received the first refrigerators via the World Health Organization, with funding from the Japanese Cooperation, the World Bank and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The Guinean government then took over via a local consultant. At present, other technical and financial partners such as the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) are involved in the purchase of medical transfusion equipment.

4. What are the features that you liked the most? Could you please talk about the performance of the devices?

We’re in a country where electricity is in very short supply. For this reason, the main criterion for us is solar power. Furthermore, temperature stability is also essential and we check that by installing internal thermometers, but we appreciate that each refrigerator comes with a temperature log that the user fills in daily. We also like the fact that we can monitor the operation of the refrigerator remotely by logging in and see from a distance if the system is working properly.

Finally, we refer to WHO certifications, which were the criteria that led us to choose the MRB3000SDD model.

5. How are you using B Medical Systems’ products and how do they benefit your institution?

We use it to store the blood bags we collect for blood transfusion between +2°C and +6°C. The unit is solar-powered and very stable. These are the main advantages of using the MRB3000SDD.

6. Have you found in B Medical Systems a trustworthy partner?

Yes, but we don’t work directly with the company but via the local partner.

7. How did you learn about B Medical Systems?

I was invited to a product presentation in Senegal, where I learned about this model, and we started working with B Medical Systems.

8. How long have you been a B Medical Systems customer?

Since 2006.

9. Are you satisfied with the equipment?

Of course, we have no problems with the equipment in terms of blood quality and service life. We have no problem.

10. Would you recommend B Medical Systems?

Naturally. If our self-evaluations give us confidence in the quality of a piece of equipment, we recommend it to our partners.

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