The RESPONSE (REDS-IV-P Epidemiology, Surveillance and Preparedness of the Novel SARS-CoV-2 Epidemic) Study aims to screen blood donations and monitor SARS-CoV-2 infections in key metropolitan areas across the U.S. Based on data presented at the AABB Annual Meeting held October 3-5, 2020, the RESPONSE study screened 1000 blood donations each month in New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angles, Minneapolis, and Boston from March or April through June 2020. For all sites, seroreactivity for anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike-1 protein total Ig was <1.0% at the beginning of the study. Seroreactivity in New York City increased the most from 0.9% (95% C.I., 0.5-1.5) in March to 11.2% (95% C.I., 9.4-13.3) in June. All other sites experienced modest increases in seroreactivity, with seroprevalence in June ranging from 0.6% in San Francisco to 1.8% in Boston. Approximately 147,000 donations from these same locations were also screened for SARS-CoV-2 RNA using nucleic acid testing (NAT) on minipooled samples. Only one mini-pool sample (in San Francisco) was found to be SARS-CoV-2 RNA positive. Further tests are in progress to determine the infectivity of the sample, but these results confirm that SARS-CoV-2 RNA is rare in blood donations and that transfusion-transmission is unlikely.
References:
- Bakkour S, Stone M, Di Germanio C, Livezey K, et al. OA1-AM20-32 Minipool testing for SARS-CoV-2 RNA in US Blood Donors. Presented at the AABB Annual Meeting held virtually October 3-5, 2020.
- Stone M, Di Germanio C, Notari EP, Sulaeman H, et al. OA2-AM20-32 Blood donor surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 seroreactivity. Presented at the AABB Annual Meeting held virtually October 3-5, 2020.
