Quality & complianceOfficial

BASG: France extends ID WNV NAT testing for blood donations across dozens of départements

🇦🇹 BASG · Fri 23 Oct 2026

Austria's BASG says French authorities have notified it of ID WNV NAT testing for blood and blood components in a list of départements where West Nile virus cases occurred.

Austria's medicines and healthcare safety agency BASG published a blood and tissue safety update on 23 October 2026. It says the French authority informed it that individual-donation (ID) WNV NAT testing has been introduced for donations of blood and blood components in the listed regions, because cases occurred there.

The list names départements including Ain, Allier, Alpes-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône, Gironde, Hérault, Rhône, Seine-Maritime, Somme, Var and Vendée, as well as several in the Paris region such as Essonne, Hauts-de-Seine and Yvelines. It has 39 entries, and Corse-de-Sud and Corse-du-Sud both appear. The notice does not say which entries are new since the previous update.

BASG asks blood establishments to pay due attention to this information during donor history interviews and donor selection. It refers readers to the attached safety warnings for further detail.

The page carries a series of 16 dated France WNV updates, from 17 July to 23 October 2026. That points to a situation BASG has been revising regularly through the season. Enquiries go to BASG's haemovigilance mailbox.

What it means for your team

  • Blood establishments should check donor questionnaires and selection procedures against the current list of French départements, as BASG requests.
  • The notice does not state which départements are new, so teams should compare the 23 October attachment with earlier updates.
  • Quality and haemovigilance staff should keep records showing that each update has been reviewed and applied.
  • The updates have been frequent, so teams should check the BASG page regularly during the transmission season.

Official source: BASG ↗

Article written by VigiEye from the official source (BASG). AI-assisted; check the source before acting.

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