Biosecurity

Blood banks could feel the squeeze from Zika advisories

As public health officials hustle to implement strategies like these to undermine the threat of the Zika virus, one such tactic could exacerbate a different health concern: maintaining the nation’s supply of donated blood.

The Food and Drug Administration is encouraging blood banks — which already often struggle to meet demand — to turn away potential donors who might be at risk. Specifically, people who have traveled to a country where the disease is being spread, or had sex with someone else who did, should not donate for four weeks. The protocol is being followed by clinics across the country.

“We need to protect the blood supply,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor at Georgetown University and faculty director of its O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. “It would be a major scandal if there were cases of Zika transmitted — particularly if it affected women of childbearing age.”