- TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada
is racing to screen donated blood for the deadly West Nile virus, but will
not stop collecting blood if it cannot find a test before the summer mosquito
season, a senior health official said on Thursday.
-
- Shrugging off fears of a second blood scandal in two
decades, the official said the risk of halting collection was greater than
that of using infected blood.
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- In the 1980s, tainted blood infected thousands with hepatitis
and the HIV virus that causes AIDS.
-
- "If half the country goes without a blood transfusion,
thousands of Canadians will die," Dr. Graham Sher, chief executive
officer of Canadian Blood Services, told Reuters.
- "One has to balance that risk against potentially
a small number of people becoming infected with West Nile and potentially
a small number of those people even dying from that."
-
- Sher said Canadian Blood Services, which manages the
blood supply, must continue collecting blood in Ontario because the province
accounts for half of Canada's blood supply.
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- Ontario, Canada's most populous province, also accounts
for the majority of Canadian West Nile cases and 10 deaths linked to the
mosquito-borne virus.
-
- The virus often causes only headaches or a flu-like illness.
But the elderly, the chronically ill and those with weak immune systems
can develop encephalitis, which can be fatal.
-
- Neither Canada nor the United States currently test for
West Nile virus, which was blamed for more than 200 deaths in the United
States last year.
-
- The first human cases in Canada were spotted in Ontario
last summer and 12 deaths have been associated with the disease across
the country.
-
- To date, 388 likely cases of West Nile virus have been
reported in Canada, including 150 confirmed cases. There is no specific
treatment for the disease, which is common in Africa and Asia and first
appeared in the United States in 1999.
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- Canadian alarm bells rang after an Ontario woman contracted
the virus and died following a blood transfusion late last year, prompting
the blood collection agency to withdraw thousands of blood products.
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- That death brought back unwelcome memories of Canada's
tainted blood scandal when thousands of blood transfusion recipients contracted
the AIDS and hepatitis C viruses from contaminated blood and blood products.
Many of them died.
-
- Sher said Canadian and U.S. health officials are optimistic
that a West Nile test will be available by the summer.
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- "Canadians should take assurance that everything
is being done to protect the blood supply," he said.
-
- Both countries are awaiting tests being developed by
the same manufacturers. Health Canada expects a submission for regulatory
approval by March 1 followed by a rapid approval process, a government
spokeswoman said.
-
- Canadian Blood Services, which replaced the Canadian
Red Cross after the tainted blood scandal, said it is stockpiling blood
taken in the winter in case a test is not ready in time.
-
- In addition, the agency is developing its own in-house
test for limited screening and will consider taking blood from low risk
areas and giving it to high-risk patients.
-
- Tim McClemont, executive director of the Hepatitis C
Society of Canada, said the agency should view the safety of the blood
supply as paramount and avoid past mistakes.
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- "We can't just minimize any threat to the blood
system...and say well it doesn't matter because it's only a small number
that may get affected," he said. "Any number is too much."
-
- Last November, police laid criminal charges against four
doctors, the Canadian Red Cross Society and a U.S. pharmaceutical company
after an investigation into the tainted blood tragedy.
-
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