Infectious risk of plasma donations: relationship to safety of intravenous immune globulins

Although intravenous immune globulin (IVIG) preparations may be derived from tens of thousands of donations, the residual risk of viral contamination of recovered plasma appears remarkably low, at least for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV). Consequently, most pools are unlikely to contain these viruses although the situation is not as well understood for US-derived source plasma. In addition, routine preparation methods are likely to eliminate infectivity from the relatively fragile HIV. Current plasma screening measures are generally designed to maintain reasonable titres of anti-HBs in pools, perhaps contributing to the absence of HBV infection. The situation with respect to hepatitis C virus (HCV) is not well understood and it appears that sensitive screening for anti-HCV may have had an impact on the safety of at least one IVIG preparation. The implementation of effective viral inactivation procedures is expected to eliminate any further risk of HCV infection from IVIG preparations.