Current estimates of transfusion safety worldwide

R Y Dodd1

  • 1American Red Cross, Jerome H. Holland Laboratory for the Biomedical Sciences, Rockville, MD 20855, USA. dodd@usa.redcross.org

Blood safety is a global public health priority. However, the degree to which blood is, or is not free of infection risk varies greatly around the world. The major determinants of this variation in risk are the availability of resources to support blood safety measures such as testing and the qualitative and quantitative epidemiological patterns of blood-borne infections. These factors are outlined and examples are presented.