The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said no cases of people contracting dengue fever through blood transfusions have been reported.
The agency made the statement at a press conference yesterday morning in response to a news report published by the Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday that said blood transfusions might cause the spread of dengue fever.
According to the report, the agency has commissioned medical research teams from National Cheng Kung University and Kaohsiung Medical University to study whether the dengue virus is being transmitted through blood donations, and the Cheng Kung team was reportedly concerned that the outbreak of dengue fever might spread, as donated blood from southern Taiwan is being delivered to northern Taiwan.
Cheng Kung University’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology Medical College associate professor Perng Guey-chuen (彭貴春) was quoted by the newspaper as saying that blood tests conducted among about 2,000 people in Tainan showed that about 7 percent have dengue virus antigen in their blood, and there might be about 200,000 people in the nation who are infected with the virus, but show no symptoms.
CDC Deputy Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) told the press conference that there were five suspected cases of dengue fever infection caused by blood transfusions, “but after examining the blood used for transfusion very carefully several times, we could not find the [dengue] virus, so we can eliminate the possibility of infection caused by blood transfusion.”
Chou said although people with dengue virus antigen might cause infection, studies have shown that patients with no symptoms carry low amounts of the virus and their infectivity rate is relatively low.
Moreover, regulations stipulate that people who recovered from dengue fever cannot donate blood for one month after their recovery, so the time they are allowed to donate blood is later than viremia, when viruses enter the bloodstream and have access to the rest of the body, which is usually five days after the outbreak.
Taiwan Blood Services Foundation chief executive officer Wei Sheng-tang (魏昇堂) said studies from other nations have shown the infection rate from blood transfusions was about 1 per 500,000, but the foundation has prohibited people with dengue fever symptoms or family members of dengue patients from donating blood.
In addition, the amount of donated blood in Tainan and Kaohsiung has fallen by about 15 percent since the dengue fever outbreak this year and the two cities occasionally received blood deliveries from other parts of the nation, so there should be no concern about dengue infected blood being delivered to northern Taiwan.
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