Critical Issues in Management of Dengue Outbreak with Single Donor Apheresis Platelets: Experience from a Tertiary Care Hospital of North India

Background: Dengue fever (DF) going into dengue shock syndrome (DSS) and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) has challenged the blood transfusion services in the form of urgent requirement of platelets. Single donor apheresis platelets technology has helped the transfusion services that would have otherwise to arrange a large inventory of random donor platelets. Aim: To analyze the critical issues in the management of dengue outbreak during the year 2012 at a tertiary care institute. Study Design and Method: This is a retrospective study of records of the 186 serology proven dengue patients' requisitions, who received SDAP transfusion support from our department and analyses of the critical issues faced in managing the dengue patients. Results: A total of 239 single donor apheresis platelets (SDAP) procedures were done for 186 patients with serology proven dengue infection. Total 139(58.15%) SDAP requisitions were received from our own institution while 100(41.84%) requisitions were from other hospitals in the region. We observed that 20.43% SDAP requisitions did not qualify either prophylactic or therapeutic criteria for platelet transfusion according to the current guidelines. A total of 205 voluntary SDAP donors are registered in our emergency donor panel for plateletpheresis, out of this only 29 (14.14%) responded for SDAP donation during the dengue outbreak. Conclusions: Following appropriate guidelines for prophylactic and therapeutic blood and blood components transfusions and a well-planned emergency donor panel registry are essential pre- requisites for successful