The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Retrovirus Epidemiology Donor Studies (Retrovirus Epidemiology Donor Study and Retrovirus Epidemiology Donor Study-II): Twenty Years of Research to Advance Blood Product Safety and Availability
Section snippets
Participating Institutions
The REDS and REDS-II each was structured around a central coordinating center, a central laboratory, and multiple participating blood centers as described in Online Appendix A. In each program, donations collected by the participating blood centers comprised approximately 8% of total US collections. An international component, conducted in China and Brazil, respectively, was added to the REDS-II program in 2006 and was organized with a similar infrastructure (Online Appendix B).
The Domestic Research Program—Major Findings
The REDS and REDS-II have made substantial contributions in 3 major research areas in transfusion medicine/blood banking in the United States, namely, infectious disease risk evaluation, blood donation availability, and blood donor characterization. The largest body of research conducted by the REDS and REDS-II was related to transfusion-transmitted infectious disease risks and included (a) assessing the prevalence and incidence, residual risks, and test yield rates of known
The International Research Program—Major Studies and Findings
Research efforts in the REDS-II international programs in Brazil and China have focused on the primary goal of identifying the scope of HIV/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome transfusion-transmission in these countries as well as other known transfusion-transmitted agents (eg, HBV and HCV) and novel or emerging agents of potential public health concern (eg, dengue virus and Trypanosoma cruzi). These international programs provide the opportunity to acquire data on new or emerging infectious
The REDS-III
The REDS and REDS-II were focused on donor research issues but, in the later years, conducted a few studies involving transfusion recipients (B19V transfusion-transmission study using the RADAR repository; LAPS-II). To focus additional research on transfusion recipients while maintaining the capability to respond to new threats and to continue donor-related research, a successor program, the REDS-III, was established in 2011. Similar to REDS-II, REDS-III includes a domestic and an international
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the many additional investigators, scientists, study coordinators, laboratory technologists, statisticians, data analysts, and data managers whose contributions were vital to the success of these programs. Principal investigators and coprincipal investigators are listed in Online Appendix C.
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Conflict of interest statement: Each of the authors declares that he/she has no conflicts of interest regarding any of the work presented in this publication.
Contract support: The Retrovirus Epidemiology Donor Study was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute contracts N01-HB-97077 (superseded by N01-HB-47114), -97078, -97079, -97080, -97081, and -97082. The Retrovirus Epidemiology Donor Study-II was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute contracts N01-HB-47168, -47172, -47175, and -57181.