Pathogen reduction in blood products

Work has been under way for some time in the field of blood transfusion medicine on the development of techniques for disinfecting donated blood. If it were to be 100% successful, this approach would offer the major advantage of removing all pathogenic micro-organisms from donor blood, even those for which the blood currently is not – or cannot be – tested. Theoretically, the introduction of these so-called pathogen inactivation techniques would mean that the selection of donors and the testing of the blood for the presence of micro-organisms would become matters of secondary importance.

Committee

• Prof. dr J van der Noordaa, Emeritus Professor of Virology, Weesp, Chairman
• Prof. dr WG van Aken, Emeritus Professor of Internal Medicine, Amstelveen
• Prof. dr GJ Bonsel, Professor of Social Medicine, Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam
• Prof. dr A Brand, Professor of Transfusion Medicine; University Medical Centre, Leiden
• Dr M van Marwijk Kooy, specialist in internal medicine/haematologist; Isala Clinics, Zwolle
• Prof. dr DJ van Rhenen, Professor of Transfusion Medicine; Erasmus University, Rotterdam
• Dr A Rietveld, Health Care Inspectorate (IGZ), The Hague, consultant
• Dr CA Uyl-de Groot, Director of the Institute for Medical Technology Assessment, Rotterdam
• Dr R Westerhof, Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, The Hague, consultant
• Prof. dr TJM de Witte, Professor of Haematology; University Medical Centre, Nijmegen
• Dr K Groeneveld, Health Council of the Netherlands, The Hague, Secretary