Pet Snake Linked to Fatal Blood Donation

[Guest papacita]

Oct 3, 10:31 am ET

 

By Gene Emery

BOSTON (Reuters) - Medical detectives tracking the source of a fatal blood infection have concluded that a pet boa constrictor was indirectly responsible.

 

The strange case, reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, suggests that salmonella bacteria often carried by reptiles could be an unrecognized source of contamination when patients receive platelets taken from apparently healthy blood donors.

 

Platelets, the tiny particles that help blood clot, can be a serious source of infection because they have to be stored at room temperature, allowing the bacteria to grow.

 

Up to 1 percent of platelet products have some type of contamination, even after blood centers try to screen out donors whose blood may be tainted.

 

The first case showed up on April 11 last year, when a 51-year-old woman received platelets as part of her treatment for leukemia. She immediately fell ill.

 

The next day, a 50-year-old woman suffering from severe stomach and intestinal bleeding was given the remaining platelets from the batch. She died later that day, but the first patient recovered..

 

A week later, investigators tracked down the donor -- the 47-year-old owner of a boa constrictor who regularly donated blood and who had felt well when he gave blood on April 7.

 

The donor had, however, he had fallen ill with fever, cramps and diarrhea two and a half weeks before his donation.

 

Bacteria subsequently taken from the snake matched that taken from the owner and the two patients, providing an answer to the mystery.

 

"Up to 3 percent of U.S. households have a pet reptile, and these reptiles may account for as many as 3 to 18 percent of the estimated 1.4 million cases of salmonella infections that occur annually in the United States," said the team of doctors led by Mehrdad Jafari of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, the chief author of the study.

 

The team said blood donors should be questioned on whether they have reptiles at home, and platelets should be routinely tested for contamination.

 

Meanwhile, techniques to sterilize products containing platelets are in advanced stages of development, they said.