Pilot Surveillance of Babesia,Borrelia burgdorferi,and Anaplasma phagocytophilum Among Chinese Blood Donors—Xinjiang,Inner Mongolia,and Heilongjiang PLADs,China,2022–2023

What is already known about this topic?Recently,tick-borne pathogens transmitted through blood transfusions have posed new risks to blood safety.What is added by this report?We developed a quality control system for nucleic acid testing(NAT)for Babesia,Borrelia burgdorferi,and Anaplasma phagocytophilum,evaluated five Triplex-NAT kits,and conducted external quality assessments of blood centers.This study screened 92,700 blood donors from Heilongjiang,Inner Mongolia,and Xinjiang provincial-level administrative divisions during 2022–2023.A donor in Hegang,Heilongjiang,tested positive for Borrelia burgdorferi,marking the first detection of this infection in Chinese blood donors.What are the implications for public health practice?Quality control of NAT is vital for managing tickborne pathogen outbreaks.To ensure blood transfusion safety,screening should be strengthened in high-risk areas outside national borders.

Serosurvey for SARS-CoV-2 among blood donors in Wuhan,China from September to December 2019

The emerging of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2)caused COVID-19 pandemic.The first case of COVID-19 was reported at early December in 2019 in Wuhan City,China.To examine specific antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in biological samples before December 2019 would give clues when the epidemic of SARS-CoV-2 might start to circulate in populations.We obtained all 88,517 plasmas from 76,844 blood donors in Wuhan between 1 September and 31 December 2019.We first evaluated the pan-immunoglobin(pan-Ig)against SARS-CoV-2 in 43,850 samples from 32,484 blood donors with suitable sample quality and enough volume.Two hundred and sixty-four samples from 213 donors were pan-Ig reactive,then further tested IgG and IgM,and validated by neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.Two hundred and thirteen samples(from 175 donors)were only pan-Ig reactive,8(from 4 donors)were pan-Ig and IgG reactive,and 43(from 34 donors)were pan-Ig and IgM reactive.Microneutralization assay showed all negative results.In addition,213 screened reactive donors were analyzed and did not show obviously temporal or regional tendency,but the distribution of age showed a difference compared with all tested donors.Then we reviewed SARS-CoV-2 antibody results from these donors who donated several times from September 2019 to June 2020,partly tested in a previous published study,no one was found a significant increase in S/CO of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.Our findings showed no SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies existing among blood donors in Wuhan,China before 2020,indicating no evidence of transmission of COVID-19 before December 2019 in Wuhan,China.