Malaria parasites present in donor blood study

Malaria parasites present in donor blood  study

Almost one in four blood bank supplies in certain regions of Africa may have malaria parasites in them, a new study suggests.

UK scientists reviewed 26 studies that measured levels of Plasmodium parasites — which cause malaria — among blood donors in sub-Saharan Africa between 2000 and 2017 and found that an average of 23.46 per cent tested positive.

Percentages varied greatly across the nine countries included in the study, ranging from 0-74 percent of donors carrying the parasites in their blood.

Overall, there is a high risk that a potential blood donor or bag will contain parasites, said Dr. Philippe Guerin, director of the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network and professor of medicine at Oxford University’s Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health.

“In an ideal world, systematic screening would prevent that” being used on patients. Guerin, the study’s lead author, presented the findings Monday at the seventh Multilateral Initiative on Malaria Pan African Malaria Conference in Dakar, Senegal.

“Malaria is one of the primary infections that can be transmitted through a blood transfusion in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Selali Fiamanya, a research fellow at the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network who also worked on the study.

Blood supplies are typically screened for blood-borne diseases before being made available to recipients.

However, Guerin believes that screening is not always being conducted systematically and that when it is, current lab techniques are not sensitive enough to spot all malaria parasites, particularly latent infections or when parasites are hiding in people who are infected but symptom-free.

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