Emerging viruses and transfusion

The development of new technologies leads to the discovery of new viruses. For each of these new infectious agents, their possible relevance to blood transfusion needs to be assessed. The questions to be answered are transmis sibility by transfusion, pathogenicity, prevalence in blood donors, persist ence, and the availability of screening assays. Since 1995, three new virus es have been identified and extensively studied. (C) 2001 Editions scientif iques et medicales Elsevier SAS.