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Background Accurate estimates of the risk of transfusion-transmitted infectious disease are essential for monitoring the safety of the blood supply and evaluating the potential effect of new screening tests. We estimated the risk of transmitting the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the human T-cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV), the hepatitis C virus (HCV), and the hepatitis B virus (HBV) from screened blood units donated during the window period following a recent, undetected infection. Methods Using data on 586,507 persons who each donated blood more than once between 1991 and 1993 at five blood centers (for a total of 2,318,356 allogeneic blood donations), we calculated the incidence rates of seroconversion among those whose donations passed all the screening tests used. We adjusted these rates for the estimated duration of the infectious window period for each virus. We then estimated the further reductions in risk that would result from the use of new and more sensitive viral-antigen or nucleic acid s...

Patients infected by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as a result of blood transfusions are unique in that their dates of infection are well defined and their medical conditions befo...