The National Blood Service (NBS) has cautioned the public against patronising the services of commercial blood donors as such blood could be contaminated.
According to the NBS, the donors mostly come from high-risk areas where diseases are endemic.
When a patient needs blood and the blood banks are empty, and family and friends are unavailable or unwilling to donate, the paid donors step in for a price.
Public Relations Officers (PRO) of the NBS, Mr Stephen Addai-Baah told Weekend Finder that donated blood is tested for HIV, hepatitis B and C, and syphilis, and donors are asked if they've been sick with malaria.
He noted that tests conducted before donating blood are preliminary while detailed tested are further carried out in the laboratory before the blood can be given to a patient.
According to him, some individuals have turned themselves into blood contractors by recruiting unemployed young men to donate blood for a fee.
The blood contractors lurk outside schools, bars and on the streets of poor neighbourhoods in Accra scouring for teenagers to give blood for patients at various hospitals for a fee.
According to Mr Addai-Baah, the contractors charge about between GH₵100 and GH₵150 per a pint of blood; the money is then shared between the contractor and the donor.
He explained that on several occasions, blood from commercial blood donors recruited by contractors was found to be contaminated after testing.
In such circumstances, the patient loses money as the contractor gets paid before testing is done.
He explained that the southern sector of the country needs between 250 and 300 pints of blood a day but only an average of 100 pints a day is available, creating a deficit of about 150 pints a day.
He noted that blood donated lasts for only 35 days, after which it can no longer be used.
Mr Addai-Baah encouraged people to donate every four months to the NBS to save lives.
He said his outfit has stepped up education on voluntary blood donation and now organises blood donation exercise on the last Saturday of every month at the Accra Mall.
Commercial blood donors, as the authorities call them, fill a void in a country where blood is often in short supply and cultural and religious beliefs keep some from donating.
While their donations likely save the lives of bleeding patients, public health officials worry that the donors spread diseases like HIV or hepatitis to those who receive their blood.
The NBS usually relies on students to donate the approximately 250 units per-day of blood used in the southern sector of the country, which includes the capital.
But they still run short, particularly when students go on holiday, Addai-Baah said.
The NBS has repeatedly sounded the alarm about blood shortages on radio stations and in newspapers, encouraging people to come out and donate.
When a patient arrives in need of blood and a hospital has none to offer, nearby clinics are contacted to see if they might have some available.
If the clinics don't, family members are called to come and donate. Friends will suffice too --- if they are willing.
If that fails, it means that the victim will not survive.
From the 1970s onwards, more than half a dozen countries, including Britain, France, Italy and Japan, were hit by scandals over tainted blood for transfusion. The biggest scare was over contamination by the AIDS virus.
Last July, a medical journal, The Lancet published a study saying that one in almost 3,000 blood donors in England carry hepatitis E and that small amounts of the virus had made it into blood banks.
Jean-Pierre Allain, a professor at the haematology department of the University of Cambridge in Britain, said that commercial blood donors make up perhaps less than 10% of donors in Ghana.
In Nigeria, the rate is between 30 and 60%.
But Ghana's rate of hepatitis, which is spread through blood, is about 15%, and a worrying sign, Allain said, estimating that about 10% of donors have the virus.
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