Transfusion-Transmitted Viral Infections

To the Editor: Schreiber et al. (June 27 issue) 1 estimate the risk of transmitting the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the human T-cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV), the hepatitis C virus (HCV), or the hepatitis B virus (HBV) from units of screened blood donated during the window period after recent infection. They conclude that the risk in the United States was very small during the three-year period of their study (1991–1993). We applied the same model of the incidence of seroconversion to data from the centers where 30 percent of all blood donations in France are collected. We calculated incidence rates in . . .