Based on the article by Kavulavu et al. (2022) about the challenges facing blood transfusion services being faced by Kenya during blood transfusion states, one of the problems faced is that the blood being donated is contaminated by viruses or diseases, such as blood containing tropical diseases or other serious viruses such as HIV, hepatitis, etc.
According to El Chakhtoura (2017), Aging can indeed change the clinical presentation of infections. The intrinsic factors of an individual are prone to physiologic changes thereby causing fraility wherein older patients are more susceptible to diseases. Although aging in itself is not a disease, as time passes, the accumulation of changes it can cause can sometimes lead to a clinical condition. As far as blood integrity is concerned, obtaining blood from older population - especially the geriatric ones – can be a difficult task, hence the blood specimen obtained can be of poor quality; thereby affecting the integrity of the sample and the subsequent procedures that will be done to it. Moreover, people of older age tend to have more risks when it comes to transmissible infections due to blood borne pathogens. According to Vally (2020), the immune system weakens as people age, therefore making older people vulnerable to infections. That said, these individuals are at heightened risk of contracting blood-borne pathogens which can increase the risk of transmissible infections.
REFERENCES:
Associate Professor Hassan Vally - Public Health, La Trobe Univeristy & La Trobe University. (2020, March 7). Why are older people more at risk of coronavirus? La Trobe University. Retrieved from https://www.latrobe.edu.au
El Chakhtoura, N. G., Bonomo, R. A., & Jump, R. L. P. (2017). Influence of Aging and Environment on Presentation of Infection in Older Adults. Infectious disease clinics of North America, 31(4), 593–608. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.idc.2017.07.017
This is an interesting question, However Age alone may not affect the integrity of the blood or increase the the risky of transmitting a disease unless coupled with Social factors. Social factors such as sexual activity of the individual( may increase chances of acquiring and transmitting sexually acquired infections that can be transmitted through transfusion such as hepatitis, HIV, Syphylis etc.), travelling to disease endemic areas, drug use and many other factors that may increase risk of acquiring blood transmissible infections. it would be nice to conduct a case control study to look at the donated blood screening outcomes vs age as one model and a model comprising Screening outcomes vs age, and adding components of social behavior, then compare to see which model gives significant correlation.
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