A paper published in Transfusion confirming the safety of transfusions of vaccinated blood from donors. Specifically, the study safety of transfusions of vaccinated blood examined, “whether the transfusion of plasma or plasma-rich platelet products from blood donors with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection and/or vaccination was associated with increased risk of thrombotic events, respiratory requirements, or hospital mortality in transfusion recipients without COVID-19.” The researchers from Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC), Vitalant Research Institute, the University of California San Francisco, the American Red Cross, Vitalant, a member of America’s Blood Centers, and the University of British Columbia performed a, “retrospective cohort study using electronic health record (EHR) data from KPNC[and] included all hospitalized adult, non-obstetric KPNC patients who were transfused plasma or platelet products in 21 hospitals from June 1st, 2020 to March 31st, 2022.”
The authors noted that, “[i]nformation on blood donors, donations, and processing was obtained from databases of Vitalant and the American Red Cross, which supply blood components to all 21 KPNC hospital facilities. Both blood collection organizations participated in universal SARS-CoV-2 screening of all blood donations from June 2020 to June 2021 and subsequently as part of the CDC-funded Nationwide Blood Donor Serosurveillance (NBDS) study.” The safety of transfusions of vaccinated blood paper reported that, “no associations between the number of platelet transfusions from SARSCoV-2 vaccinated blood donors and outcomes of thrombosis (OR 1.00 [95 percent CI 0.96, 1.04]), increased respiratory requirement (OR 0.99 [95 percent CI 0.96, 1.02]), or hospital mortality (OR 1.01 [95 percent CI 0.99–1.04]) in recipients. In parallel, there were no associations between the number of plasma transfusions from SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated blood donors and thromboses (OR 0.96 [95 percent CI 0.90–1.02]), respiratory requirements (OR 1.00 [95 percent CI 0.98, 1.04]), or hospital mortality (OR 1.02 [95 percent CI 0.99–1.05]). There were also no significant associations between the receipt of plasma and platelet units from SARS-CoV-2 uninfected vaccinated donors and donors with hybrid immunity.”
Additionally, the authors of the paper on the safety of transfusions of vaccinated blood discovered, “no evidence of adverse outcomes in recipients of plasma or platelet units within 60 days of initial nucleocapsid antibody seroconversion, indicating recent infection. [They] found no association of adverse outcomes with the receipt of plasma or platelet units with the highest titers of SARS-CoV-2 spike or nucleocapsid antibodies.” The researchers concluded that, “this study provides reassuring insights into the safety of blood transfusions from donors with varying SARS-CoV-2 exposure histories. These results provide some reassurance in the context of the national prevalence of blood donor SARS-CoV-2 prior infection and vaccination. Nationally, the combined infection- and vaccination-induced SARS-CoV-2 donor seroprevalence was estimated to be 96 percent by September 2022. The findings support the continued use of blood products from vaccinated and previously infected donors, addressing patient concerns about potential risks.”
Citation: Roubinian, N.H., Greene, J., Spencer, B.R., et al. “Blood donor SARS-CoV-2 infection or vaccination and adverse outcomes in plasma and platelet transfusion recipients.” Transfusion. 2025