Estimation of the Outbreaks of Transfusion-Transmissible Emerging Infectious Diseases in Korean Blood Donors by Public Data / 대한수혈학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Transfusion transmissible emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) is a potential risk to the safety of blood transfusions due to the lack of donor screening assays. To prevent the spread of EIDs through blood transfusions, we attempted to predict the possibility of blood donations from people with EIDs using a public database. METHODS: We used the Disease Web Statistics System of the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Korean Statistical Information Service. We estimated the possibility of blood donations from people with EIDs using the public database combined with the database made available by the Blood Information Management System of the Korean Red Cross. RESULTS: Among the transfusion transmissible EIDs, Babesiosis, Leishmaniasis, West Nile fever, Chikungunya, and Dengue fever were reported in Korea. All of them were cases imported from abroad. Although the number of reported cases of Babesiosis, Leishmaniasis, West Nile fever, and Chikungunya were less than 10 per year until 2016, the reported cases of Dengue fever gradually increased from 2001, and there were 318 cases of Dengue fever in 2016. CONCLUSION: The possibility of blood donation from people with transfusion-transmissible EIDs was low because all reported transfusion-transmissible EIDs in Korea were from foreigners and blood donation from Koreans who returned from abroad was restricted for a period of a month. Nonetheless, preventive strategy for donation from people is necessary given the recent increase in Dengue fever.