The Japan Red Cross Society (JRC) is calling on potential blood donors that were in the vicinity of Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park or Shinjuku Central Park to wait four weeks because of the dengue fever outbreak, according to a JRC announcement Thursday (computer translated).
Image/ Waldszenen at the wikipedia project
While dengue fever is not transmitted person-to-person, the virus can be transmitted via blood transfusions. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports “In rare cases dengue can be transmitted in organ transplants or blood transfusions from infected donors.”
More information on transmission of dengue via blood transfusions:
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/15/1/07-1097_article.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2713854/
The current dengue fever case count in Japan is now up to 115, according to a Japan Times report Friday.
Last September in the United States when a locally acquired dengue fever outbreak was reported in Martin County, Florida, the Florida-based blood collection agency, OneBlood, temporarily suspending blood collection operations in Martin and St. Lucie counties in Southeast Florida due to the outbreak in the area. For more infectious disease news and information, visit and “like” the Infectious Disease News Facebook page
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