Browsing by Author "Amuasi John"

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    Low risk of SARS-CoV-2 in blood transfusion
    (PLOS ONE, 2021) Owusu Michael; Sylverken Angelina Augustina; El-Duah Philip; Owusu-Dabo Ellis; Amuasi John; Adu Eric...et al
    The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), continues to remain a global challenge. There is emerging evidence of SARS-CoV-2 virus found in the blood of patients from China and some developed countries. However, there is inadequate data reported in Ghana and other parts of Africa, where blood transfusion service heavily relies on voluntary and replacement blood donors. This study aimed to investigate whether plasma of infected individuals could pose significant transfusion transmitted risk of COVID-19 in Ghanaian populations. Methods This cross-sectional retrospective study was conducted at the Kumasi Centre for Collabora tive Research into Tropical Medicine (KCCR), KNUST, Ghana. Study subjects comprised contacts of COVID-19 individuals, those with classical symptoms of COVID-19 and individu als who had recovered based on the new Ghana discharge criteria. Whole blood, sputum or deep coughed saliva samples were collected and transported to KCCR for SARS-CoV-2 testing. Viral nucleic acid was extracted from sputum/ nasopharyngeal samples using Da An Gene column based kit and from plasma using LBP nucleic acid extraction kit. Real-Time PCR was performed specifically targeting the ORF1ab and Nucleocapsid (N) genomic regions of the virus. Results A total of 97 individuals were recruited into the study, with more than half being males (58; 59.7%). The mean age of all subjects was 33 years (SD = 7.7) with minimum being 22 yearS