WNV in Blood, Ramifications for Blood Donations

The following AP news story appeared July 23 in my local newspaper.
Does anyone have more information? For example,
(a) transcript of Hira Nakhasi briefing to the Blood Products advisory
committee (Nakhasi is director of FDA's Division of Emerging and
Transfusion Transmitted Diseases).
(b) publication describing the American Red Cross study showing that
WNV can linger in the blood up to 49 days.

I could not locate either of these by Googling. FDA's contact person
has not responded to my phone message.

Thanks, Lois Levitan

>
> West Nile Fears Could Impact Blood Supply
> Virus Could Linger In Blood For 49 Days
>
> Jul 23, 2004 1:29 pm US/Pacific
> WASHINGTON (AP) People with signs of West Nile infection, including
> headache and fever, should be barred from donating blood until nearly
> two months after the symptoms wane, federal health officials proposed
> Friday.
>
> A Food and Drug Administration official briefed the agency's Blood
> Products advisory committee about the recommendation. Depending on its
> effect on the blood supply, the guidance could be finished as early as
> this fall.
>
> Already, West Nile is racing through this summer's hot spots,
> sickening and killing people in Arizona, California and Colorado.
> Sensitive tests have tagged 61 potentially infected donors, whose
> blood donations were yanked from shelves, Hira Nakhasi, director of
> the FDA's Division of Emerging and Transfusion Transmitted Diseases,
> told the advisory committee.
>
> Typically, those donors could not make another blood donation until 28
> days after their first symptoms of West Nile. That deferral period was
> based on 1950s research that indicated West Nile virus could remain in
> the body for 28 days.
>
> The American Red Cross, testing samples from the 2003 West Nile
> epidemic, found the infectious virus could linger in blood for up to
> 49 days.
>
> "This is all new territory," Nakhasi told The Associated Press.
> "Nobody has done the study, until now."
>
> Within the FDA, researchers are mulling a change that would postpone
> potential donations until 56 days after West Nile diagnosis or
> symptoms consistent with the mosquito-borne ailment.
>
> Already, the agency tries to reduce the chance of spreading infections
> through blood by testing for diseases such as AIDS and deferring
> donors who may have variant Cruetzfeldt-Jacob, the human equivalent of
> mad cow. And, using new tests, blood banks screened 6 million units
> from June to December of 2003, confirming West Nile infections in 818
> units.
>
> The FDA's most worrisome concern with the proposed change: Reducing
> blood donations.
>
> "That is the question we are discussing at the moment," Nakhasi said.
>
> The American Red Cross, which issued an urgent call for blood
> donations last week in its upstate region, said the recommendation
> would have "minimal" impact on blood supply.
>
> "There are a small amount of people who are deferred," said Stephanie
> Millian, a Red Cross spokeswoman in the agency's national
> headquarters. "If they do make the recommendation, it would have a
> minimal impact."
>
> Whole blood donors already wait 56 days before rolling up a sleeve for
> the next donation. People who donate just platelets, the part of the
> blood that helps with clotting, however, would no longer be able to do
> so every two weeks.
>
> America's Blood Centers said it deferred 2,000 potential donors last
> summer. That shaved an estimated 3,200 units from the 7.5 million
> units of blood ABC collects annually in the United States and Canada.
> The new proposal would not have much of an effect nationally, despite
> summertime supply shortages, said spokeswoman Sharon Pavlovsky.
>
> The sharper pinch would be felt regionally, especially in West Nile
> hot zones like Arizona. Nearly one-third of potential blood donations
> that initially tested positive for West Nile so far this summer were
> in Arizona, a state with 137 human infections as of July 22.
>

Lois Levitan, PhD Program Leader
Environmental Risk Analysis Program (ERAP)
Department of Communication
213 Rice Hall, Cornell University
Ithaca, New York USA 14853-5601

Phone: (607) 255-4765 Fax: (607) 255-0238
Email: LCL3@cornell.edu
Web: http://environmentalrisk.cornell.edu

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Received on Tue Aug 3 12:31:11 2004