US Puts Blood Ban on Soldiers Returning from Iraq

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> washingtonpost.com

>

> US Puts Blood Ban on Soldiers Returning from Iraq

>

>

> Reuters

> Thursday, October 23, 2003; 9:57 PM

>

> By Paul Simao

>

> ATLANTA (Reuters) - American soldiers returning from Iraq are being told

> not to give blood for up to one year to prevent the possible spread of a

> parasite into the U.S. blood supply, federal health officials said on

Thursday.

>

> The precautionary ban was ordered by the Department of Defense and the

> nation's largest association of blood banks following an outbreak of

> cutaneous leishmaniasis among U.S. soldiers serving in the Persian Gulf

and

> Afghanistan.

>

> Leishmaniasis, which is endemic in the Middle East, tropics and some parts

> of southern Europe, is usually spread by the bite of sand flies. Those

> infected develop painless skin lesions that can, if left untreated, cause

> scars.

>

> Visceral leishmaniasis, the more serious form of the disease, can damage

> internal organs and cause death.

>

> The new blood donor restrictions will apply to soldiers for 12 months

after

> their last day in Iraq, according to a report published on Thursday by the

> U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

>

> The lengthy deferral is due to the difficulty of detecting the parasite

> responsible for leishmaniasis, which can incubate for several months and

> produce no symptoms or only mild illness in those infected.

>

> UP TO 25 DAYS

>

> It also can survive for up to 25 days in blood stored under normal

> conditions, according to the Department of Defense's Armed Services Blood

> Program office. There are no reports of infections occurring through blood

> transfusions in the United States, where incidence of the disease is rare.

>

> The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million cases of the

disease

> occur each year, mostly in developing nations in Africa.

>

> Between August, 2002 and September, 2003, a total of 22 U.S. soldiers in

> Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan contracted leishmaniasis. All recovered after

> being treated for three weeks at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington,

D.C.

>

> Another nine cases have surfaced in the past two months.

>

> Defense officials believe that the majority of the soldiers, who came from

> different branches of the U.S. military, were infected while serving in

> areas around the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and An Nassiriya.

>

> Recent tests conducted by the U.S. military found that more than 1 percent

> of sand flies in Iraq carried the parasite.

>

> Although the ban will remove thousands of servicemen from the rolls of

> blood donors, many of these would already have been excluded because of

the

> military's existing blood ban for soldiers returning from areas where

> malaria was endemic.

>

> There is no vaccine or medication to prevent the disease, and those

> infected are banned for life from donating blood.

>

> http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A9068-2003Oct23?language=printer

>