Gaps in Current Blood Safety Strategies

The majority of current safety strategies are of a reactive nature. Testing for pathogens is only possible once the pathogen is known and a testing assay commercially available. Due to the window period both serology tests and polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based tests are limited and may miss contaminated products. For many emerging or re-emerging pathogens, tests are not available or are not used routinely. The addition of further tests not only mean additional costs but also losses to the blood component due to sampling, an increase in blood center workload and a delay in the availability of the products.