About Testing West Nile Virus in Blood

Video Transcript

"Lets talk about the West Nile virus. Most people are worried about that now. It is in the United States and it is actually found all across the nation. Previously, we talked about pooling the West Nile virus into pools of six. During the mosquito season, we don't pool anymore but we go to individual testing. We do that because we want to make sure that we don't miss the virus, if it is being diluted in a pool. The most significant thing about the West Nile virus, that I've noticed here in the testing, is that the donor may have absolutely no symptoms. So, we test everyone. If you give the West Nile virus to a patient whose immune system is already compromised, for whatever reason, be it cancer treatment or they are just very sick, it will almost always cause brain problems. This test, of all of the tests that we have started doing here in the laboratory, is one of the most significant ones. Surprisingly, when we call the donor back and say that they are positive for the West Nile virus, they say that they have never had a headache and/or a fever. For this reason, this is a very significant test. So, here at the Stanford Blood Center, we will start individual testing for the West Nile virus usually in mid-June, when mosquitoes thrive, until the first of October."