Blood-borne Pathogens: A Canadian Blood Services Centre for Innovation Symposium

Testing donations for pathogens and deferring selected blood donors have reduced the risk of transmission of known pathogens by transfusion to extremely low levels in most developed countries. Protecting the blood supply from emerging infectious threats remains a serious concern in the transfusion medicine community. Transfusion services can employ indirect measures such as surveillance, hemovigilance, and donor questioning (defense), protein- or nucleic acid based direct testing (detection), or pathogen inactivation of blood products (destruction) as strategies to mitigate the risk of transmission-transmitted infection (TTI).

Source: Transfusion Medicine Reviews - February 22, 2016 Category: Hematology Authors: Geraldine M. Walsh, Andrew W. Shih, Ziad Solh, Mia Golder, Peter Schubert, Margaret Fearon, William P. Sheffield Source Type: research