An international study on emerging arboviral infections and blood safety

BACKGROUND: Emerging and re-emerging arboviral infections are a risk to blood safety. We conducted an international survey on how blood establishments respond to current and future arbovirus threats. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: A questionnaire on arbovirus donor deferral strategies, pathogen reduction, and donation screening was distributed to members of the International Society of Blood Transfusion working party on transfusion-transmitted infectious diseases. Data from 2024 were gathered and analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 23 survey responses were received from 21 countries. This covered a population of 1.45 billion people and 29.9 million blood donations collected in 2024. All respondents applied travel-based donor deferrals, whereas pathogen reduction, implemented by half of the respondents, was mostly applied for a selection of plasma and platelet donations. West Nile virus (WNV) was the only arbovirus blood donations were screened for by nine respondents from eight countries, with 256 donations confirmed as WNV RNA-positive in 2024. No transfusion-transmitted WNV infections were reported. DISCUSSION: Blood safety measures remain limited and unevenly distributed globally, and in their present form, are unlikely to provide protection against the growing range of emerging arboviruses. Donor deferral may not always be a sustainable blood safety strategy alone for all blood operators, due to large-scale outbreaks associated with these viruses. While pathogen reduction methodologies are being developed to be applied to all blood components, risk assessments for (re)-emerging arboviruses, such as dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses, should be performed to determine if additional mitigation, such as blood donation screening, is warranted.

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Publication Details

Journal
Transfusion
Published
2026-06-18
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/trf.70306
Primary Topic
Blood donation and transfusion practices
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

An international study on emerging arboviral infections and blood safety

Ute Jentsch, Josephine Mitchel, Aneta Kopacz, Helen M. Faddy et al.
Transfusion
Blood donation and transfusion practices
article

An international study on emerging arboviral infections and blood safety

Ute Jentsch, Josephine Mitchel, Aneta Kopacz, Helen M. Faddy, Naoko Goto, Ángel Luis Pajares Herraiz, Ana Lafuente Guijosa, Carolina Bonet Bub, Marijke Weber‐Schehl, Daniel Candotti, Carmen L. Charlton, Brian Custer, Gülşen Özkaya Şahin, Steven J. Drews, O Serban, Claire Reynolds, Wai‐Chiu Tsoi, Michel‐Andrés García‐Otálora, Maha A. Badawi, Anthea Cheng, Ruth Offergeld, Sheila F. O’Brien, Е Б Жибурт, Ewa Sulkowska, Shannah Secret, Piya Rajendra, Galen Conti, P C Simmonds, So‐Yong Kwon, Riikka Lehtisalo, Nahid Chenarsabz, Ruţă Sm, Tuulia Palukka, Heli Harvala, Christoph Niederhauser, Marion C. Lanteri, Axel Seltsam, Sung‐Chan Park, Jose M. Kutner, Ryanne Lieshout‐Krikke, the Virology subgroup of the ISBT WP‐TTID
article en

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Emerging and re-emerging arboviral infections are a risk to blood safety. We conducted an international survey on how blood establishments respond to current and future arbovirus threats. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: A questionnaire on arbovirus donor deferral strategies, pathogen reduction, and donation screening was distributed to members of the International Society of Blood Transfusion working party on transfusion-transmitted infectious diseases. Data from 2024 were gathered and analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 23 survey responses were received from 21 countries. This covered a population of 1.45 billion people and 29.9 million blood donations collected in 2024. All respondents applied travel-based donor deferrals, whereas pathogen reduction, implemented by half of the respondents, was mostly applied for a selection of plasma and platelet donations. West Nile virus (WNV) was the only arbovirus blood donations were screened for by nine respondents from eight countries, with 256 donations confirmed as WNV RNA-positive in 2024. No transfusion-transmitted WNV infections were reported. DISCUSSION: Blood safety measures remain limited and unevenly distributed globally, and in their present form, are unlikely to provide protection against the growing range of emerging arboviruses. Donor deferral may not always be a sustainable blood safety strategy alone for all blood operators, due to large-scale outbreaks associated with these viruses. While pathogen reduction methodologies are being developed to be applied to all blood components, risk assessments for (re)-emerging arboviruses, such as dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses, should be performed to determine if additional mitigation, such as blood donation screening, is warranted.

Transfusion
NHS Blood and Transplant (GB), American Red Cross (US), Inserm (FR), Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy (RO), University of the Sunshine Coast (AU), University of California, San Francisco (US), Malmö University (SE), King Abdulaziz University (SA), Lund University (SE), Australian Red Cross Lifeblood (AU), Swiss Red Cross (CH), Robert Koch Institute (DE), Japanese Red Cross Society, Japan (JP), Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein (BR), Finnish Red Cross (FI), Korean Red Cross (KR), German Red Cross (DE), Turku University Hospital (FI), Pacific Research Institute (US), Sanquin (NL), Academia Oamenilor de Știință din România (RO), South African National Blood Service (ZA), University of Oxford (GB), Instytut Hematologii i Transfuzjologi (PL), Iranian Legal Medicine Organization (IR), National Medical and Surgical Center named after N.I. Pirogov (RU), Vitalant (US), Universitatea Nicolae Titulescu din București (RO), Comunidad de Madrid (ES), Institut Mondor de Recherche Biomédicale (FR), Institute of Virology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SK), Romanian Academy (RO), Universidad del Rosario (CO), Canadian Blood Services (CA)
Partnerships for the goals
Openalex Percentile: Top 3%
Blood donation and transfusion practices
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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