Latest Issue of Transfusion Monthly Podcast Focuses on Monkeypox, Blood Safety

In the latest Transfusion Monthly Podcast, host Yara Park, MD, speaks with the authors of a rapid review on the monkeypox virus (MPXV) and the safety of the blood supply.

In their rapid review, Alexander L. Greninger, MD, PhD, MS, MPhil, assistant professor at the University of Washington Medical Center; Louis Katz, MD, an infectious diseases specialist and emeritus chief medical officer at ImpactLife; and their co-authors described the history of MPXV and the status of the current outbreak, the vaccine recommended by the Food and Drug Administration as pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis, and the potential implications for transfusion medicine.

There have been no documented cases of transfusion transmission of MPXV, but other considerations for the transfusion medicine community have not been studied. In their conversation with Park, Greninger and Katz discussed the potential presence of infectious viremia in blood components, the impact of universal leukoreduction on MPXV, and what blood collectors and transfusion services can learn from the MPXV outbreak and the COVID-19 pandemic.