Screening of Blood Donations for Zika Virus Infection - Puerto Rico, April 3-June 11, 2016.

Transfusion-transmitted infections have been documented for several arboviruses, including West Nile and dengue viruses (1). Zika virus, a flavivirus transmitted primarily by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that has been identified as a cause of congenital microcephaly and other serious brain defects (2), became recognized as a potential threat to blood safety after reports from a 2013-2014 outbreak in French Polynesia. Blood safety concerns were based on very high infection incidence in the population at large during epidemics, the high percentage of persons with asymptomatic infection, the high proportion of blood donations with evidence of Zika virus nucleic acid upon retrospective testing, and an estimated 7-10-day period of viremia (3).

Absence of detectable viremia in plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cells from smallpox vaccinees: implications for blood safety.

Background: Mass smallpox vaccination with live vaccinia virus has been considered as a preventive measure to counter bioterrorism involving smallpox. This has raised concerns about the possibility of vaccinia virus being transmitted from vaccinated blood donors to recipients. The results of this study could be used to define an appropriate deferral period for blood donors (vaccinated against smallpox) to ensure safety of the blood supply.

Bacteriological water quality status of River Yamuna in Delhi.

Bacteriological water quality status in terms of total coliform and faecal coliform count was studied on both--east and west banks of river Yamuna in Delhi. Membrane filtration technique was adopted for enumeration of total coliform and faecal coliform count in the river water sample collected on monthly basis for 2 years--2002 and 2003. The study reveals the impact of diverse anthropogenic activities as well as the monsoon effect on the bacterial population of river Yamuna in Delhi stretch.

Variation at NOD2/CARD15 in familial and sporadic cases of Crohn's disease in the Ashkenazi Jewish population.

Objective: Recent reports indicate that allelic variants in NOD2/CARD15 are associated with Crohn's disease (CD) susceptibility, and that homozygosity or compound heterozygosity at this locus for any of three recently defined sequence variants confers a greatly increased risk of CD. These sequence changes include two missense mutations, R702W and G908R, and a frameshift insertion, 1007insC. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of these NOD2/CARD15 variants in familial and sporadic CD patients in the Ashkenazi population and to determine their effects on disease susceptibility and age of disease onset (AOO).