FDA sets guidelines to protect blood supply from Zika virus

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The Food and Drug Administration is recommending that U.S. blood banks refuse donations from people who have traveled to countries where the Zika virus is active in the previous four weeks, part of guidelines meant to protect the blood supply from the mosquito-borne virus.

The agency recommends the same four-week deferral for people who have shown symptoms of the virus or had sexual contact with someone who has traveled to a Zika-affected region in the past three months.

The recommendations follow similar measures taken earlier this month by the Red Cross and the American Association of Blood Banks, which have asked travelers to Zika outbreak countries to wait at least 28 days before donating blood.

Though FDA officials stressed that there have been no reports of Zika entering the U.S. blood supply, they said transmission through blood is a real possibility.

Meanwhile, he World Health Organization says it may be necessary to use controversial methods such as genetically modified mosquitoes to wipe out the insects that are spreading Zika across the Americas.

The virus has been linked to a spike in babies born with abnormally small heads, or microcephaly, in Brazil and French Polynesia. The U.N. health agency has declared Zika a global emergency, even though there is no definitive proof it is causing the birth defects.

WHO said its advisory group has recommended further field trials of genetically modified mosquitoes, which previously have been tested in small trials in countries including the Cayman Islands and Malaysia.