NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought more details like costs and availability of facility to conduct nucleic acid amplification test in government hospitals across the country to detect transfusion-borne infections such as HIV and hepatitis.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalia Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi asked advocate A Velan, who represents the PIL petitioner Sarvesham Mangalam Foundation, to provide details on how much cost would be incurred in conducting NAT tests and whether the facility is available in government hospitals so that the poor can also avail it.
The Foundation has made the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and all states and union territories parties to the appeal.
The PIL sought an order to the Center and states to declare that the “right to safe blood” is an intrinsic aspect of the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution.
It also sought directions “to implement mandatory NAT in all blood banks across the territory of India to detect transfusion-transmitted infections, including HIV, hepatitis C virus, hepatitis B virus, malaria and syphilis, in blood collected from all donors, to ensure supply of safe and infection-free blood to all recipients.”
The Delhi-based NGO highlighted the state’s “systematic and persistent failure” to protect vulnerable patients, especially those with thalassemia, from life-threatening TTI diseases such as HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C. Thalassemia is a genetic blood disorder that requires patients to undergo blood transfusions every 15 to 20 days in order to survive.
However, for thousands in India, such blood transfusions have become a “gamble with death,” the petition said.
“Thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder caused by the body’s inability to produce enough hemoglobin, the protein found in red blood cells that transports oxygen from the lungs to the tissues and carbon dioxide to the lungs. Since India is the thalassemia capital of the world, there is a need to enhance blood safety practices across the country… especially the need for a standardized test to screen blood donors.”
The PIL cited a series of “preventable tragedies” across the country and said that in Madhya Pradesh, in 2025, at least six children with thalassemia tested positive for HIV after blood transfusions at a Satna district hospital.
In Jharkhand, five children were infected with HIV after blood transfusions at Sadar Hospital in Chibasa in 2025, she said, adding that in Uttar Pradesh, 14 children were infected with hepatitis C and HIV in a medical college in 2023.
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