Abstract
[Truncated abstract] From a patient perspective, the risks associated with receipt of blood products in Australia are very low and have been minimised by continuous improvement initiatives and technological advances. However, there remain safety related challenges, important among them managing the threat from infectious disease agents proven, or with the potential to be transmitted by blood.(Dunstan et al. 2008) The combined effect of judicious donor selection, state-of-the-art testing and pathogen reduction measures assures that the Australian blood supply is among the safest in the world for currently screened transfusion transmitted infectious diseases (TTID).(Seed et al. 2005b; Polizzotto et al. 2008) Despite continually improving screening measures for TTID agents they are not 100% effective, and there remains a small but finite probability, termed the 'residual risk' (RR), that a blood donation will be collected from an infectious donor and potentially transmit infection to the recipient.(Busch 2006) Monitoring the RR for TTIDs has historically been achieved by direct measurement of the rate of infection in transfusion recipients. However, because of the effectiveness of current safety measures the RR for the major TTIDs has declined to levels which now make this strategy impractical due to the large sample size required (100,000 to 1 million recipients).(Kleinman and Busch 2000) This necessitated an alternative approach and spawned the development of mathematical risk modelling pioneered by three US research groups in the mid 1990's.(Lackritz et al. 1995; Schreiber et al. 1996; Kleinman et al. 1997; Korelitz et al. 1997). The initial focus was HIV, HCV, HBV and HTLV since traditionally these viruses have been perceived to pose the most significant infectious risk for blood recipients.
| Original language | English |
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| Qualification | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Publication status | Unpublished - 2009 |