Emergency blood transfusion practices among anaemic children presenting to an urban emergency department of a tertiary hospital in Tanzania

BACKGROUND: Severe anaemia contributes significantly to mortality, especially in children under 5 years of age. Timely blood transfusion is known to improve outcomes. We investigated the magnitude of anaemia and emergency blood transfusion practices amongst children under 5 years presenting to the Emergency Department (ED) of Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) in Tanzania. METHODS: This prospective observational study enrolled children under 5 years old with anaemia, over a 7-week period in August and September of 2015. Anaemia was defined as haemoglobin of <11 g/dL. Demographics, anaemia severity, indications for transfusion, receipt of blood, and door to transfusion time were abstracted from the charts using a standardized data entry form. Anaemia was categorized as severe (Hb <7 g/dL), moderate (Hb 7–9.9 g/dL) or mild (Hb 10–10.9 g/dL). RESULTS: We screened 777 children, of whom 426 (55%) had haemoglobin testing. Test results were available for 388/426 (91%), 266 (69%) of whom had anaemia. Complete data were available for 257 anaemic children, including 42% (n = 108) with severe anaemia, 40% (n = 102) with moderate anaemia and 18% (n = 47) with mild anaemia. Forty-nine percent of children with anaemia (n = 125) had indications for blood transfusion, but only 23% (29/125) were transfused in the ED. Among the non-transfused, the provider did not identify anaemia in 42% (n = 40), blood was not ordered in 28% (n = 27), and blood was ordered, but not available in 30% (n = 29). The median time to transfusion was 7.8 (interquartile range: 1.9) hours. Mortality was higher for the children with severe anemia who were not transfused as compared with those with severe anaemia who were transfused (29% vs 10%, p = 0.03). CONCLUSION: The burden of anaemia is high among children under 5 presenting to EMD-MNH. Less than a quarter of children with indications for transfusion receive it in the EMD, the median time to transfusion is nearly 8 h, and those not transfused have nearly a 3-fold higher mortality. Future quality improvement and research efforts should focus on eliminating barriers to timely blood transfusion. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12878-017-0091-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.