Annually, millions of people worldwide receive blood transfusions or blood-derived products. Around the world, more than 92 million blood donations are collected every year.
Laboratory screening of donor or donated blood and blood products for infectious diseases is a key safety measure in protecting patients and preventing the spread of serious diseases.
It has been estimated that, on an annual basis, unsafe blood transfusions around the world have been responsible for up to
Nucleic-acid testing (NAT) by Real Time PCR detects the presence of viral infection by directly testing for viral nucleic acids and can be used to screen whole blood and plasma samples.
Commonly used NAT assays detect HIV-1 RNA, HCV RNA, HBV DNA.
