Assessing risks of infection with herpes viruses during transfusion of donor blood and its components

A primary task transfusion medicine should solve is to provide infection safety of donor blood and its components. Our research goal was to assess potential risks of a recipient being infected with herpes viruses during transfusion of donor blood and its components and to suggest a set of activities aimed at the risk reduction. We examined blood samples taken from 142 donors who permanently resided in Moscow; our task was to detect markers of active infections caused by herpes simplex viruses, types 1 and 2, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), cytomegalovirus, and human herpes type 6 virus. Immunoglobulins M and G were determined with ELISA test; antigens, via an indirect immune fluorescence reaction combined with rapid cultural technique. All the donors successfully passed all the selection procedures and were accepted for donation. Active forms were most frequently detected for infections caused by EBV (11.97 ± 2.73 per 100 examined) and human herpes type 6 virus (9.86 ± 2.51 per 100 examined), and it was accordingly 10 and 8...