I'm sorry if this post causes more worries, but I've been wondering about babesiosis, a tick-borne infection that causes an illness similar to Lyme disease. I have read that it's a problem with blood transfusions, but when I google "babesiosis IVIg," all I get is articles about using IVIg as a treatment for babesiosis. Evidently there's no screening test. Can someone tell me if IVIg is safer (with regard to the transmission of infections) than a full blood-transfusion? Thanks,

Abby

I believe that IVIG donations go thru different "cleansing" techniques than full blood.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16892245

You can Google the terms in that article for more details.

The only recall I can remember for "contamination" involved a prion disease in one donor from Utah, several years ago. Since prions are not "alive" and are smaller than viruses, I don't think they can be screened for yet.

This is interesting as well:
http://books.google.com/books?id=3Qw...20IVIG&f=false

I also believe besides years and years ago with one issue (which they have since made it more "clean").. that there is a VERY low risk of any contaminant!!
My symptoms all started after a blood transfusion for a botched simple procedure (and I was post partum too).. I was seronegative for CMV a few weeks before birth of my son, and a few weeks after - after the blood transfusion - I was CMV positive... I am ALWAYS curious if this is related, but no one seems to even want to investigate it??! They won't even check on my blood donors to see if they are still alive or suffering from any illness... all they can tell us iis- they were fine when they donated... UGh!! Well of course, or else hopefully they wouldn't have been allowed to!