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CNN Live Today
Can Organ and Blood Donors Transmit West Nile Virus?
Aired September 02, 2002 - 10:05 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Also, a new concern is emerging in the battle against the potentially fatal West Nile virus. Public health officials are tracking what may be a series of infections that began with a blood transfusion and continued through organ donations.
CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us now with details.
This is really scary.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is scary if it turns out to be true. And I have to say there's a big if here because all the cases that I'm going to talk to you about, it may have all just been caused by mosquitoes. We don't know. The CDC is looking at it.
Let's take a little look at what exactly has happened. It's all started here in Georgia where a woman got into a car accident. She went to the hospital. After she died, her family donated her organs to four different people.
The first person developed encephalitis and died. The autopsy showed that the illness that that person had was consistent with West Nile or a similar kind of virus.
The second person developed encephalitis. They did lab work, and that illness also appears to be -- that lab work showed that it was West Nile virus.
The third person developed encephalitis. Lab work is being done as we speak.
The fourth person developed a mild fever and lab work is also being done.
So again, these are the four people that one woman who had the accident, her body parts only went to those four people. So it may end there. It may just end with her possibly having transmitted to those four people.
But there is, unfortunately, a scarier scenario which has to do with how that woman got West Nile in the first place. The accident victim received blood transfusions and the blood and blood products came from 37 donors. Now if one or more of those donors had West Nile, the question is where else did that blood go? That blood could have gone to other people besides the accident victim. That is what the CDC needs to figure out. It is not an easy thing to figure out. It is a -- it is basically a big mystery that they need to solve.
Now of course the question that's probably on everyone's mind is well gee, why don't they just screen blood for West Nile virus?
Yesterday, I was at the Centers for Disease Control. I asked their head of infectious diseases that question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: When someone comes in to donate blood, is there any way to test their blood for the presence of West Nile virus?
DR. JAMES HUGHES, CDC INFECTIOUS DISEASES DIRECTOR: Not currently. At the time of blood donation, today there is not a test that could be used to screen an asymptomatic person in a reliable way for evidence of West Nile infection.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: Now West Nile virus has been in the United States for three years now, and doctors have known that theoretically this is one way of possibly transmitting the disease through blood or through organ donations. But they said up until now it was theoretical, and now they need to see if this is the first case of this actually happening.
COSTELLO: And just to make it so people better understand, when a mosquito bites you, it really exchanges the blood of the last person it bit with you and that's how people contract West Nile virus.
COHEN: Or the last animal it bit.
COSTELLO: Got you.
COHEN: Right.
COSTELLO: Got you.
COHEN: Right.
COSTELLO: And the same sort of thing happens in an organ donation, there is somewhat of a blood swap, is that true?
COHEN: Right, there's a -- there's a swapping of sort of bodily fluids, and so you're -- you could be getting that. If you gave me an organ, I could get whatever virus you had in your body.
COSTELLO: Is there a chance the CDC will never figure this out?
COHEN: I think they're going to figure it out. And the reason why is that it is possible to do this detective work. For example, the 37 folks who donated blood to the woman who died and then who then donated her organs, they keep samples of those. And so they can go back and they can test the 37 samples and see, OK, this person had West Nile virus, maybe that's how it got there. One note that I want to make which is very interesting about blood donation and we talked about how there's no test for blood donation, unfortunately, one of the problems is that when someone goes to give blood, if that person has a fever, they can say you know what, we don't want your blood. Go away, you may have West Nile virus. But the problem is that most people don't have any illness at all. So someone could be walking around being contagious with West Nile -- being infectious with West Nile disease and not know it. Eighty percent of people who carry the virus don't know it. They have no disease whatsoever so and only 1 percent of them or even less than 1 percent have a serious illness. The other 19 percent are sort of ill but not a serious illness.
COSTELLO: Well if I had a family member who was gravely ill and needed a blood transfusion or an organ donation, I would be really nervous about this.
COHEN: You know you would be nervous because this sounds so scary and you hear about these four cases. But I asked the doctor from the Centers for Disease Control, I said well would you be nervous? He said absolutely not, I would not be nervous. If I needed an organ donation, I would be so sick that West Nile virus would be low on my list. The risk of getting it from blood or organs he said is minimal. If I needed a blood transfusion, again, I'd be seriously ill. The risk of getting this infection is so small he said he wouldn't even think about it.
COSTELLO: All right, Elizabeth Cohen, thank you...
COHEN: OK.
COSTELLO: ... for filling us in.
COHEN: Thank you.
COSTELLO: It was very helpful.
COHEN: Thank you. Thank you.
COSTELLO: For all the latest on the West Nile virus and this latest concern, visit our Web site. That address is CNN.com. AOL keyword, as always, CNN.
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