Thursday, August 28, 2008 Talk back: Blood databank to fight dengue By Dr. Milagros Mahilum-Greif Cebuana Biologist Based in Germany
THIS is a reaction to the report “City builds blood type databank vs. dengue” (Aug. 24, 2008).
It is good to hear that the Cebu City Council is acting on and spending money to fight and reduce the cases of dengue in Cebu.
The plan to build blood type databank against dengue so that blood would be available when a dengue patient needs blood transfusion is good.
But there are important questions to be raised or aspects to be considered before the plan is implemented, otherwise, it will just worsen the incidences of dengue in Cebu.
For one, blood samples collected from different residences in the barangays should be subjected to laboratory tests to make sure the samples or donors have not been infected with one of the four serotypes (1,2,3 and 4) of dengue.
To test the presence of dengue viruses in the blood sample, the Council or the city health office should do the lab test using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) or Enzyme Link Immunusorbent Assay (Elisa) test.
Blood samples from donors already infected with the dengue virus, when used on another dengue patient will worsen the situation.
If blood with dengue serotype 1 is given to a receiver that has been infected with dengue serotype 3, the tendency to develop dengue hemorrhagic fever or dengue shock syndrome is very high and deadly.
Furthermore, donors may not have been infected before by any of the four dengue serotypes but got infected with dengue serotype a few days before donating blood.
In this case, you would kill the dengue patient by introducing another dengue serotype through the blood donor.
That is why the two methods I mentioned of checking the presence of dengue virus in the blood samples are very important if the databank project were to be done successfully.
Related to this topic, I collected 173 blood samples from Cebu City and had these tested for the presence of dengue viruses in Germany.
I found out that 94.9 percent of the blood were infected with dengue, 2.2 percent were not and 2.8 percent were equivocal (the study is published by an international journal, “Journal of Vector Ecology,” Vol. 30.no.2 in 2003).
Lastly, I appreciate very much the effort of the City Council as well as the city health office but please be aware of the points I mentioned, otherwise this plan will never solve the problem of dengue but will worsen the condition of infected patients.
