Banco de Sangre de Servicios Mutuos (BSSM), Puerto Rico’s largest blood bank, supports 10 hospitals in metropolitan San Juan, Puerto Rico, and distributes blood and blood products to another 30 hospitals throughout the island. The Challenge The Zika virus, spread primarily by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, arose as an emerging threat to the Americas in 2015. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a guidance to reduce the risk of the transfusion-transmission of the Zika virus (ZIKV) in February 2016, with a revised version released in August 2016. 1 Puerto Rico, an area with active ZIKV transmission, was the first US area that needed to comply with the guidance. With only 4 weeks to implement the initial guidance, Puerto Rico had the option to either suspend collections

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