Are We Missing West Nile Virus in Turkish Blood Donors?

Abstract

Objective:In countries with the West Nile virus (WNV) presence, blood bank screen donated blood for WNV to reduce contamination risk. Despite surveillance studies in Turkey, which is currently a sporadic region for WNV, it remains unclear whether routine WNV screening is necessary. The aim of this study was to investigate whether WNV screening is necessary in Turkey by analyzing WNV seropositivity in blood donors (BD) in Istanbul, which houses more than one-fifth of the country's population.