[Prevention of post-transfusional malaria]

The Authors report the results over a four year-period of their protocol for the detection of blood donors at risk of harboring Plasmodium Falciparum and thence transmitting post-transfusional malaria. This protocol is based on donor questioning and antibody detection by an immunofluorescence assay. It has led to exclude from the direct transfusional network 0,41% of the draws, but then 1032 units have been reintegrated in the inventory without provoking any reported incident. A short study of the geographic origins of the infections confirms the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) data and allows to insist on high risk areas and even reveals previously unsuspected ones. As long as there is no available automated method, and, foremost, no direct parasitemia-detecting assay, this low-cost protocol seems satisfying.