All blood banks in the continental U.S. has been required to begin its testing of the blood which was donated for contamination with the Zika virus by the end of the this week. It has noted that many banks were done with the test. The results of which who had done it earlier indicated that the country has successfully avoided it for now.

In the twelve states, the screenings implies that infection of Zika has stayed surpassingly odd. Approximately, there were 800,000 blood donations have been tested in 6 months ago or so. Out of 800,000 it has been accounted that nearly 40 were originally positive of the virus, said the New York Times.

Dr Susan Rossmann, chief medical officer at Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center in Houston said that it is a good thing to know that they had avoided the transmission of Zika. "It is good news that we are avoiding the transmission of Zika. It was considered a good news for the chief medical officer.

In addition, Rossmann disclosed that it would not be a surprise that there were so few probably positive cases. For her it was due to blood banks that have hindered people from donating if they currently have traveled to place wherein the virus have evolved.

Roche Molecular Systems has administered the blood donation screening for Zika. Some of the blood screenings were conducted with the collaborative effort of the two medical companies, Hologic Inc. and Grifols. The two tremendous clinical trials has regulated that every blood donor is a participant. Thus, all the results would be reported to the companies.

Roche's Molecular System had screened donations approximately 475,000 in the U.S. which excluded Puerto Rico on Friday. Tony Hardiman, leader of the company's blood screening program has revealed that the result had just shown 25 originally reactive for Zika infection. He said that it is just small if compared to Puerto Rico.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about one percent of the blood donors in Puerto Rico were infected in July. A week before, there was 1.8 percent of the participants were tested who were originally positive in the surveillance.

Using the test conducted by Hologic Inc. and Grifols on mid-October, about 348,000 donations had been screened. There were fourteen initially positive of the Zika virus. It was reported that it might not all of the samples were truly contaminated.

The producer has contend to confirm the results with technology is still in development, and the manufacturers are scrambling to confirm their results and would sought for more observations of the donors. Meanwhile, the technology has been in its further improvement.

Among the three examined donors by Hologic and Grifols, seemed to have been infected outside the United States. One donor in Reno, Nev., has donated its blood at United Blood Services after the donor has visited Nicaragua. A New Yorker donor had been to Trinidad and the third dwells in Arizona and had visited Mexico.

All the three donors had been traced to have a little traces of the Zika virus in their blood. It was detected that after travelling abroad for 41 and 97 days it was transmitted to them. Jeffrey Linnen, an associate vice president at Hologic, said to the respondents at an AABB conference for the standards-setting group for most blood banks nationwide.

Dr David O. Freedman, infectious disease specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham said that a viral material which has been detected after 40 days would no longer be an active virus. He said that the longer the person would be infected, the more the person could be detected of residues that has breaks down from dead pieces of virus that had evolved.

In August, the Food and Drug Administration has required all the blood banks to have the blood be screened each of the millions of blood donations collected annually for Zika. It was found out that eleven states were in high-risk areas. This implied that they have to apply precautionary measures to safeguard the public in a month. They were compelled to do so this coming Friday.

Experts at that time feared that Zika-infected mosquitoes would start to devastate within states along the Gulf Coast. It would prompt outbreaks that resembles those observed in South America. Thus, it threatened the supply of donated blood in the nation.

To avoid the transmission of Zika virus in donated blood, a universal screening would be essential especially to pregnant women. It has been disclosed that once a virus is exposed in utero, it would make the fetuses brains to be damaged. It would also cause visual and joint problems, and muscle tone. Once the muscle tone would be damaged it restricts the movement so rigidly.

The only state which has been documented with local transmission of the virus is Florida. In July, the F.D.A. has transiently stopped collecting blood donations both in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. It was ceased for a while until Zika virus screening could be set up.

It has been noted that blood banks conducted the screenings on their own. There were times that they had paid a laboratory to ensure donations were Zika-free. Hospitals took charge for the additional costs. Dr. Rossmann said that the costs range from $6 to $10 a unit. The doctor added that for sure that was not petty.

During a survey on 2011, it was discovered on an average unit of red blood cells the hospitals paid 210 USD after pathogens have been screened. As researchers observed, they had concluded that the cost of blood has increased.

Moreover, Rossmann said that the F.D.A. requirement has to be followed. She iterated that F.D.A had made it vivid that their center didn't have much of a choice, as well as the hospitals. It would be an immense task to for blood banks meet deadlines.

To screen donations especially with a new test would normally take six to 12 months. F.D.A. timetable would only be one month for the blood banks in Florida. The eleven other states has been given one month too. While the 38 other states with high risk for Zika outbreaks had been given three months.

Philip Williamson, vice president for operations and scientific affairs at Creative Testing Solutions said that the screening was intensely painful and intensely expensive. The screening of blood donations was not funded by our government.

For instance the Rhode Island Blood Center has acquired two new machines to screen 153,000 annual donations. The center has trained 17 employees as loaders of blood samples and to run the automated testing around the clock.

Dr. Carolyn Young, the chief medical officer has disclosed that they have been into a race to get ready. The chief risk to the blood supply would be nearly 4,000 travelers who would be infected of Zika while abroad. Mostly patients would have no symptoms is anticipated in the coming months, according to Reuters.

The director of the division of vector-borne diseases at DDC, Dr. Lyne Petersen has been calling number of travel cases in the continental states was beyond ordinary. The threat was not on the fact that it would seek to donate blood, but on the fact that they would serve as vectors which the Zika virus would be ready to devastate the population, though the mosquitos which carry the infection was not present.

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