Safety News

April 29, 2009 – Health authorities around the world are warning about the risk of “swine flu,” a form of influenza virus. Although this potential pandemic is cause for general concern, the virus in question poses no threat to the safety of plasma-derived medicinal products such as clotting factor concentrates. The influenza virus is a lipid enveloped virus and is inactivated by common methods such as pasteurization and solvent-detergent treatment. Furthermore, plasma donations would not be accepted from donors that show symptoms of the flu such as fever, a cough or general pain. People with the flu are contagious when they have symptoms; after their symptoms have gone, they are no longer likely to infect others. No case of influenza transmitted by transfusion has been reported in the scientific literature.

Any global pandemic could have the effect of reducing the plasma supply if significant numbers of plasma donors showing symptoms of the flu were to be deferred. If swine flu continues to spread around the world, it is possible that, over time, supplies of donated plasma would be affected and this could eventually reduce the supply but not the safety of plasma-derived clotting factor concentrates. The WFH will continue to be vigilant regarding any threat to global safety and supply of treatment products for bleeding disorders.

There is still much that is not known about the current swine flu outbreak. As more information emerges, in particular if the risk to plasma-derived treatment products changes, the WFH will update our community. You can find more information about the swine flu outbreak at these sites:

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html

http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/index.htm

Download here the guidance: "HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents: Considerations for Clinicians Regarding Swine-Origin Influenza A (H1N1) Virus"

On February 16th 2009 the Health Protection Agency in the UK announced that a person with haemophilia had been found to have evidence of infection with the agent (abnormal prion protein) that causes Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD). The agent was found in his spleen during a post mortem. The man with haemophilia, who was in his seventies when he died last year, did not die of vCJD and had no symptoms of vCJD when he was alive. He died of an unrelated cause.

The following statement was released by the World Federation of Hemophilia ( WFH ) on February 16th. More... 

Japanese researchers were able to capture a detailed image of the structure of an enzyme that influenza viruses need to reproduce. The finding could lead to the development of novel drugs that target such viruses, including the H5N1 bird flu virus, one of the researchers said. Reuters

Source: AABB smartbrief

The number of AIDS cases has peaked or stabilized in some nations but has increased in others, according to a report from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS that looked at data from 147 countries -- not including the U.S. Data related to the number of U.S. cases is expected to be released by the CDC on Sunday. Although 33 million people worldwide have the virus, less than one-tenth receive antiviral treatment. The Wall Street Journal (free content)

Source: AABB smartbrief

Increases in international AIDS funds lead to increased treatment of people with HIV in developing countries. But this appears to be increasing HIV drug resistance, particularly to non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, as two drugs in that category are often the standard first-line treatment outside of the West. One point of concern is the lack of programs to monitor the resistance, a problem that will be addressed at the 17th international AIDS conference, which begins this weekend. Financial Times

Source: AABB smartbrief

Mice infected with the West Nile virus showed a thousandfold drop in virus levels in the brain and a 50% improvement in survival after continuous treatment with AMD3100, researchers reported. The experimental drug allows T cells to get past the blood-brain barrier to fight the virus, which in turn can boost immune-cell trafficking, "ultimately leading to a rapid dampening of inflammation that can have pathologic consequences," the scientists said. Yahoo!/Reuters

Source: AABB smartbrief

U.S. government officials have promised AIDS scientists that they would shift the focus of their vaccine agenda to stress funding for basic laboratory work. They made the pledge at a vaccine summit Tuesday, almost a year after Merck & Co.'s HIV vaccine candidate failed in a large-scale trial. The Washington Post/Reuters (3/25) , The New York Times

Source: AABB smartbrief