Introduction

As rapid progress has been achieved in companion animal medical care in recent years, transfusion techniques were much more broadly and frequently utilized in veterinary medicine. Besides the extensive clinical application of veterinary blood transfusion, some other important related risks of transfusion-associated blood pathogen transmission should also be alerted. The whole selecting process, other than the first step of selection (inquiry of age, weight, and husbandry management), includes the health condition monitoring of the donor candidates as well as potential pathogen detection.

Objectives

After comparing transfusion medical and blood transmitted pathogenic literatures internationally and domestically, this study aimed to set up a standard of blood pathogen screening for canine donor candidates in Taiwan.

Methods

From June 2016 to January 2018, 138 dogs were recruited into the program. After the steps of screening, 56 candidates donated blood and were tested for blood pathogen infections by using nested PCR with the respective primer sets designed for different target genes (18S rRNA, 16S rRNA, and gltA gene).

Results

The results revealed positive on Rickettsia felis 2.2% (1/56) and negative on Anaplasma platys, Babesia canis, Babesia gibsoni, and Ehrlichia canis.

Conclusions

In accordance with the results, even for those donor candidates under good husbandry management and current on heartworm, ectoparasitic preventives as well as up-to-date vaccinations, there are still underlying infectious risks of those blood transmitted pathogens mentioned above.