Title : How Safe Is The Blood Supply?
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How Safe Is The Blood Supply?
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The source of Blood Banks
To ensure the safety of the blood supply, blood banks in the United States check thoroughly each unit of blood for infection and carefully evaluate donors.
Before donating, all volunteers are asked an extensive medical history to reveal the possible exposure to disease risks. The history includes questions about foreign travel, the high-risk sexual activity and intravenous drug use. The selection process is conservative to exclude any person who may have been exposed to a bloodborne disease. For example, people who have recently traveled to an area where malaria is common will be excluded temporarily, even if no signs of disease.
Other security measures also apply. For example, donating blood in the United States is voluntary and unpaid, to reduce the possibility that patients at risk for blood-borne diseases conceal facts about your lifestyle or travel history so they could receive the payment for blood donation.
After giving blood, donors have an additional opportunity to exclude themselves by requesting confidentiality that your blood can not be used. This allows the participation at a time when donating blood seems mandatory, as in a unit of workplace or when a family member is ill.
The next level of security involves the quality of the blood itself. Each unit is subjected to a series of tests to check for hepatitis B, hepatitis C, HIV (the virus that causes AIDS), HTLV-1 (retrovirus similar to HIV) and syphilis. There are actually three tests for HIV, more accurate test for patients who have contracted the disease recently. With this combination of tests, anyone infected with HIV would be a positive result within about 10 days after infection, compared with the six months they had been standard. In addition, most donors give blood several times, and therefore are tested repeatedly, reducing the risk that they may transmit a disease transmitted by blood.
To maintain blood transfusions as safe as possible, new tests for infectious agents are constantly evaluated. Communicable diseases can potentially be a high priority for concern, either by severity (transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as "mad cow disease") or prevalence (infection by the West Nile virus). Then the blood test developed to detect the disease should be proven very effective.
Despite extensive testing and security measures, the system is not foolproof. There is still a risk - albeit extremely light - to develop a transfusion-related disease. For example, the risk of contracting HIV from a transfusion is about one in 500,000 to one in 1 million for each unit of blood received. These figures are considerably lower than in 1987, when the American Red Cross estimates a risk of about one in 150,000. In addition, some rare diseases such as malaria, can slip through simply because we can not test for them.
Reducing the risk
the slight risk of infection from donated blood in an emergency situation, it is often overshadowed by the benefits potentially lifesaving transfusion. On the other hand, if you are facing elective surgery, you can reduce the risk of transfusion-related disease to the vanishing point by donating blood himself. (See its own blood supply.)
In the future, other risk reduction options may be available. Researchers are investigating recombinant technology as a way to create drug treatments can be as effective as components of human blood. Scientists are also working on ways to sterilize platelets and red blood cells with techniques similar to those currently used to sterilize blood plasma. That would give blood transfusions that had been cleared of all known viral activity and bacteria.
Another step you can take if you're facing surgery is to find out if your hospital is accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks. All hospitals and blood banks are inspected by the FDA, but the AABB also conducts a voluntary inspection and certification offers first-class facilities. Nearly all blood banks and about two-thirds of the hospitals belong to the association. Call the blood bank of the hospital and ask if it is accredited by the AABB. If not, discuss your safety concerns with your surgeon, and ask if there is an accredited hospital can use instead.
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