Infectious risks of transfusion: a 10-year look back and perspectives

The past decade brought progress in reducing bacterial contamination risk, including refined bacterial testing, novel findings on cold storage of platelets, and expanded use of pathogen reduction. Rather than treating bacterial contamination as a single-front problem, the review groups improved testing, new understanding of platelet cold storage, and pathogen reduction as parallel developments of the same period. A review-level synthesis based on a decade of developments; no specific study design or effect size is given in the text.

Pathogens such as Zika virus, Plasmodium, Babesia and SARS-CoV-2 required evaluation by transfusion services and, in some cases, active intervention; SARS-CoV-2 showed that an emerging infectious disease can impact the blood supply independent of whether it is transfusion transmissible. It separates the impact of SARS-CoV-2 from the question of transfusion transmissibility, noting that a pandemic itself can disrupt the blood supply. A retrospective narrative account of specific pathogen events, presented at the level of a review.

The pandemic afforded new insight into convalescent plasma and how passive immunotherapy can be used to treat infectious diseases. It links the COVID-19 pandemic and convalescent plasma experience to knowledge about passive immunotherapy for infectious diseases. A review-level statement; no specific trial data or efficacy figures are provided in the text.

Transfusion services are moving toward individualized risk assessment and relaxing longstanding donor deferral policies (e.g. variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease), helping to alleviate the transfusion deficit; AI and machine learning have yielded novel tools for surveillance and horizon scanning. It places the policy shift and AI-based surveillance tools side by side as two favorable developments of the same period. A review-level synthesis; no specific policy evaluation data or AI tool performance metrics are given.

This article is positioned as a reflection on the impact of infectious diseases on transfusion services over 2016-2026, intended for readers concerned with blood safety policy, donor selection, testing and pathogen reduction, including transfusion service managers, policymakers and clinical transfusion staff. Its discussion of low and low-middle income countries signals that applicability should be considered alongside local donation patterns, screening capacity and surveillance systems.

Readers may still watch for: the specific effects and implementation conditions of the refined bacterial testing, novel platelet cold storage findings, expanded pathogen reduction and AI surveillance tools mentioned in the text are not elaborated here; the insight into convalescent plasma and passive immunotherapy remains directional. In addition, the text used for this reading is an overview without figures or reference details, so the evidential strength of each development can only be judged to a limited extent.