Plasma metagenomics reveals regional variations of emerging and re-emerging pathogens in Chinese blood donors with an emphasis on human parvovirus B19.

At present, many infectious pathogens, especially emerging/re-emerging pathogens, exist in the blood of voluntary blood donors and may be transmitted through blood transfusions. However, most of Chinese blood centers only routinely screen for HBV, HCV, HIV, and syphilis. We employed metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) to investigate the microbiome in healthy voluntary blood donors to help assess blood safety in China by identifying infectious pathogens presented in donations that could lead to transfusion-acquired infections.