Transmission of L. infantum by blood donors

The possible transmission of Leishmania via blood transfusion was raised by the World Health Organization in 1990. We screen blood from donors to the Monaco Blood Bank who live in areas endemic for L. infantum, checking for potential asymptomatic Leishmania carriers and searching for parasitemia. To date, sera of 463 donors have been analyzed by western blotting, and 61 of them exhibited 14- and/or 18-kDa bands previously shown to correlate with a positive leishmanin skin test. To date, L. infantum promastigotes have been detected by culture in blood samples from nine donors. In some cases detection of parasites was only possible by maintaining cultures for more than three months.