The virucidal effect of platelet concentrates: preliminary study and first conclusions.

Despite the increased safety of blood components, achieved through improved donor selection and testing, transfusion recipients remain at risk of transfusion-associated diseases. Transfusion of cellular blood components has been implicated in transmission of viral, bacterial and protozoan diseases. Investigators have studied a myriad of processes for pathogen depletion and/or inactivation.

Infection due to acyclovir resistant herpes simplex virus in patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Over an eight-month period from October 1997 to May 1998, four patients who had received bone marrow transplant (BMT) from unrelated donor presented with severe mucosal cutaneous infections involving acyclovir resistant herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1). The four isolates were acyclovir (ACV) resistant, three of which were also foscarnet resistant as determined by the dye uptake method. The sequencing of the thymidine kinase (TK) gene did not permit to establish a relation between mutations and resistance to ACV.

Investigation of aciclovir-resistant herpes simplex virus I infection in a bone marrow transplantation unit: genotyping shows that different strains are involved.

Over an eight-month period from October 1997 to May 1998, four patients who had received a bone marrow transplant (BMT) from an unrelated donor presented with severe mucosal cutaneous infections involving aciclovir resistant herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1). The emergence within a short period of resistant HSV-1 strains in the bone marrow transplantation unit raised fears of hospital-acquired infections. The hypothesis was investigated by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), sequencing of the thymidine kinase (TK) gene and genotyping of hypervariable regions of these four strains.

Susceptibility of clinical strains of herpes simplex virus to three nucleoside analogues.

The susceptibility of clinical isolates of herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1) (58 strains) and 2 (HSV2) (17 strains) from the Centre Hospitalier et Universitaire de Nancy to three nucleoside analogues was compared by the dye uptake method. As expected, all strains of HSV2 were resistant to brovavir or sorivudine. Aciclovir and penciclovir activities were comparable; 2 strains of HSV1 were resistant to these two compounds.

A simple method for the in vitro study of the virucidal activity of disinfectants.

For the study of the virucidal activity of a disinfectant by the gel filtration or the dilution methods, the concentration of virus has to be high enough to determine a decrease in titer of at least 4 logarithm units. A filtration technique for rapid separation of the disinfectant and the virus is described that overcome this limitation. The method is applicable to any chemical compound and gives results equivalent to those of the techniques required by the French norms (NF T 72-180).