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Many insect-borne pathogens that circulate in the bloodstream have been transmitted by transfusion. Since 2003, when the first transfusion-related West Nile virus (WNV) infections were confirmed, blood and blood products in the U.S. have been screened for this organism. Generally, nucleic-acid testing (NAT) is first done on minipooled samples from 6 or 16 donors (MP-NAT); if results are positive, individual donation testing (ID-NAT) is performed. Twelve transfusion-related transmissions of WNV have been reported after negative MP-NAT screening; now, investigators describe the first documented case of WNV transmission after negative ID-NAT results.
In August 2012, a man with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, who had been screened for infections including…