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FDA Approves Second West Nile Virus Screening Test for Donated Blood and Organs

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today (August 28) announced approval of a second test for the detection of West Nile virus (WNV) in blood and organs.

The cobas TaqScreen WNV test is an automated test that's able to detect the genetic material of the virus itself early in the infection. Such nucleic acid testing improves blood and organ safety, detecting whether donated blood and organs have been infected even before the donor's body has begun to produce antibodies against the virus.

Most often, WNV is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes. But WNV can also be transmitted by blood transfusion or organ transplantation from infected donors. While WNV infection is common in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, it did not appear in the United States until 1999. Since then, WNV has become endemic in most of this country, with from 1 million to 3 million cases between 1999 and 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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