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Bloodborne Parasites

Some parasites can be bloodborne. This means two things:

  1. the parasite sometimes can be found in the blood stream of infected people; and
  2. the parasite might be spread to other people through exposure to an infected person's blood, for example, by blood transfusion or by sharing needles or syringes contaminated with blood.

The major bloodborne parasites of potential concern in the United States include the protozoa that cause American trypanosomiasis (also called Chagas disease); babesiosis and malaria, both of which are caused by parasites that live inside red blood cells; and leishmaniasis. In nature, these parasites typically are spread by insects (vectors) rather than by blood – i.e., by particular species of triatomine (“kissing”) bugs, ixodid ticks, anopheline mosquitoes, and phlebotomine sand flies, respectively. In the United States, the risk for vector-borne transmission is very low for all of these parasites except for some Babesia species.

Although all of these parasites are vectorborne in nature and can be bloodborne, they differ in important respects, some of which affect the likelihood of spread by blood transfusion (as well as by organ and tissue transplantation), in general and in the United States in particular. For examples, these parasites markedly differ with respect to:

  • how and how commonly they are spread in nature in various regions of the world;
  • how commonly people who become infected elsewhere return or move to the United States;
  • where (in what cells, body fluids, tissues, and organs), at what levels (concentrations), and how long the parasites remain in the body in treated and untreated people; and
  • whether infection typically is associated with clinical or laboratory manifestations that affect the likelihood of donor deferral.

Related Bloodborne Parasitic Diseases

For more information on some of the bloodborne parasitic diseases, please select from the list below.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z



A

American Trypanosomiasis (Chagas Disease)

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B

Babesiosis (Babesia Infection)

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C

Chagas Disease (American Trypanosomiasis)

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L

Leishmaniasis (Kala-azar, Leishmania Infection)

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M

Malaria

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T

Trypanosomiasis, American (Chagas disease)

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Page last modified: April 24, 2008
Page last reviewed: January 9, 2007
Content Source:
Division of Parasitic Diseases (DPD)
National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-borne, and Enteric Diseases (ZVED)
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