BACKGROUND Blood collection following nonstandard operations largely increases the risks of infectious diseases through cross-contamination. Commercial plasma donation and the resulting HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C epidemics in central China in the 1990s killed more than one million people. Many blood banks have since moved to more remote southwest provinces, which have become new suppliers of bloo...

BACKGROUND Testing of blood donors for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA by means of nucleic acid amplification was introduced in the United States as an investigational screening test in mid-1999 to identify donations made during the window period before seroconversion. METHODS We analyzed all antibody-nonreactive donations that were confirmed to be ...

BACKGROUND Japanese Red Cross (JRC) blood centers implemented anti-hepatitis B core antigen (HBc) screening in 1989 and 50-minipool (MP)-nucleic acid testing (NAT) in 2000. A systematic lookback study has been conducted to determine the hepatitis B virus (HBV) transmission risk of donations drawn in the pre-hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and/or MP-NAT window phase and by donors with occult...

In Europe, the dynamics of endemic hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection remain enigmatic. We studied the presence of silent HEV infection among Dutch blood donors. Using donations collected throughout the Netherlands in 2011 and 2012, 40,176 donations were tested for HEV RNA in 459 pools of 48 or 480 donations. Deconstruction of the reactive pools identified 13 viraemic donors. In addition, 5,239 ...

Blood transfusion is made possible because, in most countries and organizations, altrui­ stic individuals voluntarily, anonymously, and generously donate (without compensation) either whole blood or separated components that are then processed and distributed by professionals, prior to being allocated to recipients in need. Being part of modern medicine, blood transfusion uses so­called standar...

BACKGROUND Routine HBV PCR screening of blood donations to our institutes was introduced in January 1997 to complete the NAT screening program for transfusion-relevant viruses. Testing was successively extended to customer transfusion services with a total of 1,300,000 samples tested per year. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS Minipools of 96 blood donation samples were formed by automatic pipettors. ...

Emphasis must also be given on voluntary risk reductions, which will require increased awareness and change in attitude of people. Voluntary blood donations have to be made a part of a healthy lifestyle. Enlightening people about the benefits of voluntary blood donations and making it important for appraisals, admissions and employment can overcome this problem. All this, however, requires stro...