EU blood screening guidelines approved:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
The Council of Ministers has passed guidelines on blood donor selection and appropriate testing of blood products in the European Union. The guidelines, which take the form of a non-binding recommendation, are designed to minimise transmission of diseases such as HIV, hepatitis and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). The rapporteur on the guidelines, French MEP Christian Cabrol, suggested that data on viral markers where donors have been tested as positive should be regularly collected, analysed and verified. Member states should also keep a track of the existence of new markers, he said.