[Chagas disease screening in the blood donor population]

Abstract

In May 2007, the French Blood Service (Etablissement français du sang, EFS) introduced systematic screening of at-risk blood donors for anti-Trypanosoma cruzi antibodies. This concerned donors originating from an endemic area, donors with mothers originating from such an area and individuals who had lived in or travelled to endemic areas, whatever the length of their stay. Five samples out of 163,740 were positive, all from individuals originating from an endemic area. One thousand three hundred seventy-four blood donations were considered as equivocal because they had discordant results on the two Elisa tests used in screening. The authors discuss difficulties presented by routine screening of travellers and residents as well as the advantages and drawbacks of the strategy used. They present arguments in favour of its simplification.