New Draft Guidance Recommendations from the FDA to Reduce Risk of Transfusion-Transmitted Creutzfeldt-Jakob Diseases Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) is a fatal, rare neurological disease caused by infectious prions, or abnormally folded proteins. Sporadic CJD accounts… February 5, 2020
World on Heightened Alert for Novel Coronavirus Coronaviruses are a large family of enveloped RNA zoonotic viruses. The emerging novel coronavirus from Wuhan, China that was first… January 28, 2020
New Ebola Treatment Options Available The current outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) which began in August 2018 in North Kivu and Ituri provinces of… December 3, 2019
WHO Declares Ebola Outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo an International Emergency The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo… July 25, 2019
Bacterial sepsis among transfusion recipients despite secondary mitigation strategies Bacterial contamination of platelet products is the most common transfusion-transmitted infection in the United States (U.S.). To mitigate this risk,… June 28, 2019
New FDA Recommendations for Babesiosis Screening of Blood Donations Babesiosis, caused by a tick-borne intra-erythrocytic parasite, is normally asymptomatic in humans but can cause severe and even deadly flu-like… May 16, 2019
The BEST Criteria to Decide Whether or Not to Culture Suspected Blood Components Life-threatening septic transfusion reactions (STR) can occur when blood components are contaminated with bacteria. Definitive diagnosis of STR, however, may… May 8, 2019
Chagas Disease Screening for Family Members of Positive Blood Donors Chagas disease (CD) is a zoonotic infection caused by blood sucking Trypanosoma cruzi—a parasite that infects over 6 million people… April 10, 2019
Babesia and Bacterial Contamination Most Frequent Transfusion-Transmitted Infections Based on hemovigilance data from the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), viral transfusion-transmitted infections (TTI) are rare while bacterial contamination… January 30, 2019
How Cost-Effective Is Zika Virus Screening? In 2016, the United States began mandated screening of individual donations for the Zika Virus (ZIKV) using nucleic acid testing… October 31, 2018
Transfusion Transmitted Infections