Blood donation under the AIDS regime.Blood donation “Give blood” redirects here. For other uses, see Give blood (disambiguation). Blood donation is a process by which a blood donor voluntarily has blood drawn for storage in a blood bank, generally for subsequent use in a blood transfusion. under the AIDS regime Since mandatory screening of donated blood to detectantibodies against the AIDS virus AIDS virus n. See HIV. began in March 1985, scientists have used the test results to assess the dangers of being infected by one of the nearly 15 million units of blood collected in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. annually. Between onset of mandatory testing and July 1986, theproportion of blood units positive for the AIDS antibody (seropositive seropositive /se·ro·pos·i·tive/ (-poz´i-tiv) showing positive results on serological examination; showing a high level of antibody. se·ro·pos·i·tive adj. ) dropped significantly from .08 percent to .02 percent, according to data from more than 818,000 units collected in Los Angeles, Baltimore and Atlanta, says John W. Ward of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC See Control Data, century date change and Back Orifice. CDC - Control Data Corporation ) in Atlanta. Ward reported last week that a CDC-coordinated study of blood donor demographics shows that the majority of seropositive units in those urban areas came from black or Hispanic men who reportedly were bisexual. Another study, reported by Joel N. Kuritsky of the Food and Drug Administration, concluded that intravenous drug users in particular are a high-risk group high-risk group Epidemiology A group of people in the community with a higher-than-expected risk for developing a particular disease, which may be defined on a measurable parameter–eg, an inherited genetic defect, physical attribute, lifestyle, habit, that continues to donate blood. The CDC study found that the proportion of seropositive donors who had donated blood previously fell from 73 percent to 55 percent over the test period, indicating that some potential donors have voluntarily ceased donating blood. Current blood screening tests are based on detecting theantibody, and not the virus, associated with AIDS. Because up to six months may pass between infection with the AIDS virus and the appearance of antibodies in the blood, the American Red Cross American Red Cross: see Red Cross. in Los Angeles studied the risk of being infected by blood that had tested negative for the antibody after it was collected, but still contained the virus and was "potentially infectious.' Previous CDC studies had placed the average risk at 1 in 80,000 units of blood. By identifying seropositive blood donors who also had previously donated blood within the last six months, and the recipients of those earlier units, the Los Angeles group estimates the average risk as 1 in 48,000. |
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