Post by Admin/ Traveler on Jul 19, 2019 20:03:31 GMT
In case anyone missed this, yes, these infections can be passed in the blood supply as the blood supply is only just now being screened for Babesia, and has never been, and is still not screened for any other tick-borne infection. If you MUST receive blood products and are not already infected, insist that you and the blood products be tested before they put them in your body!!
For those that are already infected, testing us won't help - but they can test the blood products, it just takes more time and paperwork than most are willing to do. After all, it's not them that will be living with the effects! We are well within our rights to insist that the blood products be tested. Although, that does not mean they will do it, and your choices may be only to either take the untested blood or to walk out without it. That is between you and your doctor.
Just remember - just because they all say that the cases of Babesia are only in the East and some Mid-western states, does not mean they are accurate!! Many doctors refuse to report cases - and sometimes, even if they ARE reported, the CDC decides it's not relevant. So, just because it's not reported, and not accurately depicted in these numbers, surely doesn't mean it's not in other areas of the country/world. Many people that have never been to those areas have confirmed Babesia.
I have added extra spacing in each of these for easier reading.
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Babesia: An Emerging Infectious Threat in Transfusion Medicine
"In the United States, almost 5 million recipients undergo blood transfusions annually. These transfusion recipients are at potential risk of exposure to transmissible pathogens like Babesia from donor blood.
This is because, besides their natural route of transmission, the parasite is also transmitted by transfusion of blood products, as its red cell location provides an appropriate niche to facilitate its transmission. In fact, as the frequency of clinical cases has risen, there has been an associated increase in transfusion-transmitted Babesia (TTB), making babesiosis the most frequent transfusion-transmitted infection with approximately 162 cases reported since 1980 and 12 associated fatalities in the period 2005–2008.
The major reason for this increase is that babesiosis can be asymptomatic, indeed clinically silent, in healthy adults who are the dominant blood donors. In one study, asymptomatic individuals who tested negative for Babesia in Giemsa smears had detectable amounts of B. microti DNA in their blood for three months.
Blood transfusion recipients generally present with more severe illness, as they have at least one of the risk factors for severe babesiosis, including extremes in age, lack of a spleen, hemoglobinopathies, cancers, HIV, and use of immunosuppressive therapy. In these patients, babesiosis may be refractory to standard antimicrobial therapy and may result in prolonged illness or death.
Historically, babesiosis has been treated with a weekly course of clindamycin and quinine. However, this combination of drugs can be so debilitating in some patients that it prevents successful completion of therapy. Physicians now recommend the equally effective combination of azithromycin and atovaquone.
Unfortunately, recent reports indicate that B. microti may become resistant to azithromycin-atovaquone in highly immunocompromised patients. This drug resistance needs to be investigated further in the public health context. Among the 18 cases of TTB identified by the hemovigilance program at the American Red Cross between 2005 and 2007, ∼30% had a fatal outcome [15]. Some studies suggest a transmission risk as high as 1 per 601 blood units in areas of the highest prevalence [16]. To complicate this situation further, B. microti is known to survive and remain viable under blood storage conditions (4°C) for up to 35 days in RBCs and indefinitely in cryopreserved RBCs.
The current strategy of blood screening, nationwide, to prevent transfusion-transmitted babesiosis (TTB) relies on a donor questionnaire to identify potential deferrals. Donors who answer in the affirmative to a query of having a history of babesiosis are barred from donating from that day forward. This reliance on donor response to risk factor questions has many shortcomings as can be seen by the substantial increase in TTB in the last ten years. While it permanently excludes prospective blood donors with a history of babesiosis, it appears to be of limited value, presumably because infected blood donors experience asymptomatic infection or remain infectious long after symptoms have resolved. "
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Babesia in the Blood Supply: Tickborne Parasite Transmitted via Transfusion
"In an article published in 2011 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, CDC and collaborators described 159 transfusion-associated Babesia microti cases that occurred during 1979–2009, most (77%) from 2000 to 2009.
No Babesia test licensed by the Food and Drug Administration is available for screening prospective blood donors, who can feel fine despite being infected."
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Three newborn children contract Babesia through blood transfusions
"We will discuss three newborn children who contracted Babesia, a parasitic tick borne pathogen, through blood transfusions on February 27, 2018 at 8PM EST. The newborn children contracted Babesia through a transfusion from an asymptomatic donor. The cases were initially described in the 2017 issues of Journal Pediatric Infectious Disease Society and in my book “Lyme Disease takes on Medicine.”"
Trav here - this one is a You Tube video, here is the link: Three newborns contract Babesia from a single donor
For those that are already infected, testing us won't help - but they can test the blood products, it just takes more time and paperwork than most are willing to do. After all, it's not them that will be living with the effects! We are well within our rights to insist that the blood products be tested. Although, that does not mean they will do it, and your choices may be only to either take the untested blood or to walk out without it. That is between you and your doctor.
Just remember - just because they all say that the cases of Babesia are only in the East and some Mid-western states, does not mean they are accurate!! Many doctors refuse to report cases - and sometimes, even if they ARE reported, the CDC decides it's not relevant. So, just because it's not reported, and not accurately depicted in these numbers, surely doesn't mean it's not in other areas of the country/world. Many people that have never been to those areas have confirmed Babesia.
I have added extra spacing in each of these for easier reading.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Babesia: An Emerging Infectious Threat in Transfusion Medicine
"In the United States, almost 5 million recipients undergo blood transfusions annually. These transfusion recipients are at potential risk of exposure to transmissible pathogens like Babesia from donor blood.
This is because, besides their natural route of transmission, the parasite is also transmitted by transfusion of blood products, as its red cell location provides an appropriate niche to facilitate its transmission. In fact, as the frequency of clinical cases has risen, there has been an associated increase in transfusion-transmitted Babesia (TTB), making babesiosis the most frequent transfusion-transmitted infection with approximately 162 cases reported since 1980 and 12 associated fatalities in the period 2005–2008.
The major reason for this increase is that babesiosis can be asymptomatic, indeed clinically silent, in healthy adults who are the dominant blood donors. In one study, asymptomatic individuals who tested negative for Babesia in Giemsa smears had detectable amounts of B. microti DNA in their blood for three months.
Blood transfusion recipients generally present with more severe illness, as they have at least one of the risk factors for severe babesiosis, including extremes in age, lack of a spleen, hemoglobinopathies, cancers, HIV, and use of immunosuppressive therapy. In these patients, babesiosis may be refractory to standard antimicrobial therapy and may result in prolonged illness or death.
Historically, babesiosis has been treated with a weekly course of clindamycin and quinine. However, this combination of drugs can be so debilitating in some patients that it prevents successful completion of therapy. Physicians now recommend the equally effective combination of azithromycin and atovaquone.
Unfortunately, recent reports indicate that B. microti may become resistant to azithromycin-atovaquone in highly immunocompromised patients. This drug resistance needs to be investigated further in the public health context. Among the 18 cases of TTB identified by the hemovigilance program at the American Red Cross between 2005 and 2007, ∼30% had a fatal outcome [15]. Some studies suggest a transmission risk as high as 1 per 601 blood units in areas of the highest prevalence [16]. To complicate this situation further, B. microti is known to survive and remain viable under blood storage conditions (4°C) for up to 35 days in RBCs and indefinitely in cryopreserved RBCs.
The current strategy of blood screening, nationwide, to prevent transfusion-transmitted babesiosis (TTB) relies on a donor questionnaire to identify potential deferrals. Donors who answer in the affirmative to a query of having a history of babesiosis are barred from donating from that day forward. This reliance on donor response to risk factor questions has many shortcomings as can be seen by the substantial increase in TTB in the last ten years. While it permanently excludes prospective blood donors with a history of babesiosis, it appears to be of limited value, presumably because infected blood donors experience asymptomatic infection or remain infectious long after symptoms have resolved. "
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Babesia in the Blood Supply: Tickborne Parasite Transmitted via Transfusion
"In an article published in 2011 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, CDC and collaborators described 159 transfusion-associated Babesia microti cases that occurred during 1979–2009, most (77%) from 2000 to 2009.
No Babesia test licensed by the Food and Drug Administration is available for screening prospective blood donors, who can feel fine despite being infected."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three newborn children contract Babesia through blood transfusions
"We will discuss three newborn children who contracted Babesia, a parasitic tick borne pathogen, through blood transfusions on February 27, 2018 at 8PM EST. The newborn children contracted Babesia through a transfusion from an asymptomatic donor. The cases were initially described in the 2017 issues of Journal Pediatric Infectious Disease Society and in my book “Lyme Disease takes on Medicine.”"
Trav here - this one is a You Tube video, here is the link: Three newborns contract Babesia from a single donor