SocialParasite
100% pure failtanium.
Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Beatrice, Nebraska
Posts: 19413 |
Person dead from West Nile contracted through transplant.
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20.../D7LQMSB00.html
Just freakin' great.
quote:
ATLANTA (AP) - Government health officials confirmed Tuesday that the West Nile virus had killed one transplant patient and infected at least two others, raising concern it can spread through transfusions and other medical procedures. Federal officials said they were speeding development of a West Nile blood test.
Until now, the virus had been thought to be transmitted to people only through the bite of an infected mosquito.
Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the victim died in Atlanta after receiving an organ from a Georgia woman who was killed last month in a car accident.
Three other people also received organs from the woman. The CDC said two of them have the virus and have developed encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain. West Nile has not been confirmed in the third person, who is recovering from a milder infection.
Health officials said the organ recipients could have contracted the virus from mosquitos, but it is unlikely. The cases are believed to be the first West Nile infections from a medical procedure.
No blood test exists to detect the virus, even in people who show symptoms. Instead, patients are diagnosed based on their immune response to the virus, which takes about 15 days.
Coming up with a quick blood test is a priority, said Dr. Lester Crawford, acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the nation's blood supply.
"We are discussing with the secretary possible strategies to stimulate the development of these tests," Crawford said before meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.
The CDC was tracking about 60 blood donors whose products were used in transfusions to the Georgia organ donor before she died to determine if the blood products gave her West Nile, officials said.
Health officials stopped using the 60 donors' blood and said they were searching for about a dozen people who had already received blood products from those donors.
Even if a test is developed, health officials said they were skeptical that all blood would be tested for such a rare disease.
"On the list of things I'd be worried about going wrong in a blood transfusion, West Nile's way down at the bottom," said Dr. Louis Katz, president-elect of America's Blood Centers, an association of independent community blood centers.
Many health officials say a practical screening test is months, maybe years, away, and the risk of catching West Nile through a blood transfusion is remote.
"We're getting way, way ahead of ourselves. We don't even know for sure whether it's possible to transmit West Nile through transfusion or organ donation," Dr. Jay Epstein, the FDA's top official for regulating blood products, said before the transplant infections were confirmed.
The news came as six probable West Nile deaths were reported in three states: Tennessee, Illinois and Kentucky. If confirmed by the CDC, the deaths would bring this year's toll to at least 37.
Mosquito-borne diseases similar to West Nile have been present in the United States for centuries, but doctors know of no cases where those diseases, such as St. Louis encephalitis, were spread through medical procedures.
The CDC has documented cases where malaria was spread through blood donations, but donors already are turned away if they've recently had malaria or visited an area where the disease is common.
CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said the risks of forgoing a blood transfusion would be greater than the risks of contracting West Nile.
"We can't guarantee the risk is zero," she said. "It's still as safe as it can be."
Screeners are already told to reject donors who appear sick. Most people bitten by an infected bug never feel sick and wouldn't know not to give blood, Katz said, but he said those people are probably not carrying enough of the virus to transmit it.
Donated blood is currently tested for various diseases, including HIV and two kinds of hepatitis. Katz said doctors have decided not to have screeners ask donors whether they've been bitten by mosquitoes lately.
"We can't go there. That's been proposed, but we wouldn't have any blood left if we took out anyone who had been bitten by a mosquito," he said.
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09-04-2002 07:00 AM
