Transfusion-transmitted Severe Dengue: Implications for Blood Supply Safety

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Safe and sustainable global supply of blood and blood components is essential to the health care delivery [1]. Strategies to decrease the risk for transmission of blood-borne pathogens from donors to recipients of blood products involve implementation of risk-based decision-making approaches, such as education and screening of donors for risks of exposure to transfusion-transmissible infections (TTIs) [2]. Testing for TTIs further decreases the risk of transmission. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that screening of all blood donations for HIV, hepatitis B and C, and syphilis should be mandatory, and testing policies for additional TTIs, such as malaria, Chagas disease, human T-cell lymphotropic virus I/II, or cytomegalovirus should be based on local prevalence in the general population and potential risk to recipients [3]. Because of rapidly changing prevalence rates, maintaining blood safety in the context of emerging and re-emerging infections is particularly challenging. In low prevalence settings, most reactive screening tests will be false positives, and confirmation testing will be required [2]. Testing for emerging TTIs should only be considered if (1) there is a proven risk of transmission of infection to recipients; (2) transmission carries a significant disease risk, and (3) appropriate screening assays are available [3].