Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Infectious disease screening in UK healthy dog blood donors
By Crawford, K et al.·Published in The Journal of small animal practice·2013·School of Veterinary Sciences & Langford Veterinary Services, United Kingdom·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Infectious agent screening in canine blood donors in the United Kingdom.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of 262 healthy dogs in the UK were screened for blood-borne infections before donating blood. Initially, four dogs tested positive or inconclusive for various infectious agents, but follow-up tests showed that they were all negative, and none of the dogs showed any signs of illness. This suggests that the initial positive results may have been false alarms, possibly due to contamination. Overall, the study indicates that healthy dogs in the UK are unlikely to carry these infectious agents, making blood donations safe for use in veterinary medicine.
People also search for: dog blood donation safety · canine blood donor screening · blood-borne infections in dogs
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Transfusion of blood products is an important component of veterinary emergency medicine. Donors must be carefully selected to minimise risk of transmission of blood-borne infectious agents. This study was devised to assess the prevalence of such agents in healthy, non-travelled UK dogs screened as prospective donors. METHODS: Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid blood samples from dogs donating blood between August 2007 and January 2012 were screened by polymerase chain reaction for haemotropic mycoplasmas, Bartonella, Babesia, Leishmania, Ehrlichia and Anaplasma spp. Dogs with positive or inconclusive results underwent repeat polymerase chain reaction testing. RESULTS: Four of 262 dogs had positive or inconclusive results at initial screening. Repeat polymerase chain reaction testing in each dog was negative, and none of the dogs developed clinical signs of disease. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: The positive results on initial screening may have represented false positives from sample contamination or amplification of non-target DNA. It is also possible that dogs were infected at initial sampling but successfully cleared infection before repeat testing. The low number of positive results obtained suggests that prevalence of these agents in a population of healthy UK dogs is low and that use of blood products is unlikely to represent a significant risk of transmission of these diseases.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23879829/