visakhapatnam the directorate general of health services of the union ministry of health and family welfare has recently revised guidelines pertaining to the processing charges for blood and blood componentsbased on the same the state health department has directed all the blood banks in andhra pradesh to strictly follow these guidelines and ratesthe processing charges for one unit of whole blood or packed red cells have been fixed at 1100 at government blood centres while 1550 can be charged at the private centres similarly 400 will be collected for a unit of fresh frozen plasma or platelet concentres at private centres and 300 at public institutions processing charges have also been fixed for various other tests components and processes like elisa hbsag anti hbc antibody screening leukofiltrationrbc bacterial detection platelets apheresis etcspeaking to toi special secretary health and family welfare department gs naveen kumar said that all blood banks have been told to strictly adhere to these rates they should publish and display it clearly through their notice boards any deviation will be strictly viewed by the health department complaints of any corruption can be reported to 14400 said naveen kumarthe guidelines also made it mandatory for all the blood centres to provide blood and blood components at free of cost to the patients suffering from thalassemia haemophilia sickle cell anaemia and any other blood dyscrasia that requires repeated blood transfusions the state government may additionally decide to provide bloodblood components at free of cost to any other category according to their norms