Canadian Blood Services Releases 2024 Surveillance Report

Canadian Blood Services recently published the organization’s 2024 surveillance report, which describes surveillance of transmissible blood-borne infections and emerging threats of concern.

The report found that rates of transfusion-transmissible diseases among both blood and source plasma donations remained very low in 2024. For allogeneic blood donations, rates per 100,000 were 0.4 for HIV, 7.3 for hepatitis C virus (HCV), 8.0 for hepatitis B virus (HBV), 1.9 for human T-cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV), and 12.2 for syphilis. For source plasma donations, rates per 100,000 were 0 for HIV, 2.5 for HCV, 7.4 for HBV and 3.3 for syphilis. Targeted testing of blood donors at risk for Chagas disease found no positive cases, while six donations tested positive for West Nile virus, similar to previous years.

Residual risk estimates of a potentially infectious donation remained extremely low, at one in 13.2 million donations for HIV, one in 72.1 million for HCV and one in 4.1 million for HBV.

Pathogen reduction for platelets continued to expand in 2024. Whole blood–derived buffy coat platelets were pathogen reduced across all regions, effectively eliminating the risk of bacterial contamination. By May 2024, apheresis platelets were also pathogen reduced. Non-pathogen reduced platelets are only distributed in rare cases for clinical contraindications. Four apheresis platelet products that had not yet undergone pathogen reduction showed bacterial growth.

The report also covers donor re-entry, the impact of sexual behavior-based screening, horizon scanning for emerging pathogens, adverse reactions to donation and donor demographics.