Use of Blood Donor Screening Data to Estimate Zika Virus Incidence, Puerto Rico, April-August 2016.

Puerto Rico has been heavily impacted by Zika virus, a mosquitoborne flavivirus that emerged in the Americas during 2015. Although most persons with Zika virus show no symptoms, the virus can cause neurologic and other complications, including fetal microcephaly. Local Zika virus transmission in Puerto Rico has been reported since December 2015.

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).

Challenges of infectious diseases in the USA.

In the USA, infectious diseases continue to exact a substantial toll on health and health-care resources. Endemic diseases such as chronic hepatitis, HIV, and other sexually transmitted infections affect millions of individuals and widen health disparities. Additional concerns include health-care-associated and foodborne infections--both of which have been targets of broad prevention efforts, with success in some areas, yet major challenges remain.