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America’s Blood Centers has partnered with Facebook to bring a blood donation tool to the United States underscoring the ongoing need for additional blood donors across the country. The launch of the tool coincides with World Blood Donor Day on June 14, an international event to thank voluntary, unpaid blood donors for their lifesaving gifts…

Congress has passed the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act (PAHPA) following approval in the U.S. House of Representatives this week. The bill (S.1379) now awaits President Trump’s signature which is ex-pected in the near future. America’s Blood Centers (ABC) and its members have supported this broad legislation that drives the nation’s disaster…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has published a final guidance en-titled, “Recommendations for Reducing the Risk of Transfusion-Transmitted Babesiosis.” The guidance recommends that babesiosis is a relevant transfusion-transmitted infection (RTTI) 21 CFR 630.3(h)(2)(i) and (ii) but does not recom-mend year-round antibody testing in Babesia endemic states at this time due to the lack…

The AABB Interorganizational Task Force and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has revised the blood prioritization letter last updated in 2007. The letter signed by HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Brett Giroir, MD is a resource to be used by blood centers when working with state, territorial, tribal, and local emergency…

Cloud computing is bringing us closer to the utility information technology (IT) model: functionality on-demand, elasticity to increase or decrease resources as needed, and accessibility—the ability to access it from connected devices in any location. Deployment models can be private (services from internal hardware), public (services from a public provider), or a hybrid (services delivered…

At the recent Blood Products Advisory Committee (BPAC) meeting (ABC Newsletter #42), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) heard the committee’s endorsement for moving from the current universal individual donation nucleic acid testing (ID-NAT) for Zika virus (ZIKV) to a model used for West Nile Virus (WNV) donor screening—screening using minipools (MP-NAT) to reduce…