Lower Incidence of Parvovirus-B19 Infections in Dutch Blood Donors during SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

Abstract

During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, several studies reported a lower incidence of respiratory infections other than COVID-19 compared to previous years, but bias due to changes in uptake and capacity of non-COVID care cannot be excluded. The routine screening of Dutch blood donors remained unchanged during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and showed a significant reduction of silent parvovirus B19 (B19V) infections from 4.0/100,000 donations in 2013 to 2019 to 0.6/100,000 donations in 2020 and 0.0/100,000 donations in first 6 months of 2021.