Primary healthcare practitioners and patient blood management in Africa in the time of coronavirus disease 2019: Safeguarding the blood supply.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted various weaknesses in global healthcare services. The blood supply in Africa is a critical element of the healthcare service that may be significantly affected by the pandemic. By implementing principles of patient blood management, primary healthcare practitioners may play an important role in the resilience of the blood supply during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Exchange transfusion as a life-saving intervention in three patients with different haematological malignancies with severe hyperleukocytosis where leukapheresis was not available.

Hyperleukocytosis is a rare but potentially serious complication of haematological malignancies. It is usually treated with rehydration, prevention of tumour lysis syndrome and the administration of cytotoxic therapy. Leukapheresis may be life-saving in emergency cases. In this article we describe how, in a resource-limited setting where leukapheresis was not available, manual exchange transfusion was utilised as a life-saving intervention in three patients with different haematological malignancies complicated by hyperleukocytosis. Further we outline the procedure that was carried out and evaluated possible complications associated with this rarely used practice.

WITHDRAWN: Exchange transfusion as a life-saving intervention in three patients with different haematological malignancies with severe hyperleukocytosis where leukapheresis was not available.

The Publisher regrets that this article is an accidental duplication of an article that has already been published, 10.1016/j.transci.2013.09.003. The duplicate article has therefore been withdrawn.

Chronic myeloid leukaemia and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection.

The occurrence of chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) in patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has rarely been reported in the literature. In this report, we describe the experience of a single centre in the management of 10 such patients, including demographic information, disease characteristics and response to therapy. We had a black female predominance in our series, with only a minority of patients achieving a complete cytogenetic response. The main reason for this appears to be compliance, which was influenced by distance to the treating centre. The side-effect profile was similar to that expected, with the exception of one patient who developed a drug rash with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms. Although CML patients co-morbid for HIV face certain unique challenges when compared to non-infected patients, their long-term outcome can be positive when appropriately managed.