Risk of HIV transmission via blood products

Abstract

Blood services are inevitable and life-saving. However, the therapy with blood products includes the risk of virus transmission. This is reflected by the high infection rate observed in haemophiliacs by acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) - inducing viruses which varies between 50 and 100 percent. Unfortunately in Malta we have the figure of almost 100 percent. But not only AIDS can be transmitted by blood products: hepatitis B (HBV) is a long- and well-known risk of blood products, and since the early seventies an additional form of serum hepatitis has been diagnosed; the so-called Non-A,Non-B hepatitis (NANBH). Further viral diseases such as cytomegalovirus (CMV) and the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infections are of less importance and only life-threatening for immuno-suppressed patients.