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Friday, May 30, 2003Where it does have public health implications is its possible transmission to the blood supply, which has now been well-documented. An infected person could easily donate blood without knowing he has the virus, which puts the recipients - who are much more likely to be in frail health and more susceptible to the virus - at risk. Which means we need to find a good way to screen for it (link requires subscription): Since most persons infected with West Nile virus have mild symptoms or none, and since meningitis or encephalitis develops in only 1 of 150 infected persons, screening donors on the basis of a clinical history alone will have limited effectiveness. Antibody tests are available, but such screening does not identify recently infected donors with viremia who are not yet seropositive. These are the blood donors who are most likely to transmit the virus. Since most infectious agents cause a transient bacteremic or viremic stage before antibody production, screening with the use of nucleic acid amplification can have an important role in reducing the risk of transplant- or transfusion-associated infectious diseases. In the past three years, more than 30 million blood donations were screened for HIV and hepatitis C virus with the use of nucleic acid amplification, resulting in the identification of more than 100 infected donors who would otherwise have gone unrecognized. If West Nile virus continues to infect large numbers of people, nucleic acid amplification screening of blood donors for the virus will be required to prevent transfusion-associated illnesses. This type of screening could also be used for organ donors, as is currently being done on a case-by-case basis at the New York State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center. Not sure what that will do to the cost of processing blood, but it seems like a necessary step. posted by Sydney on 5/30/2003 08:57:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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