Artificial Blood Substitute Registered In S.A.

LtCmdr.Com writes "The first blood "substitute" (it's actually an oxygen-transport fluid) has been registered for use in South Africa. This is a great idea, especially with the HIV rate around here. The relevant links: SABC, BBC." Their artificial blood is actually made from cow hemoglobin, so it's not quite as artificial as I was hoping, but it offers the advantage of greater shelf life and smaller risk of infection with human diseases than donated blood, according to the manufacturer.

Comments

Re:Smallpox reborn?

[3waygeek]

If I remember correctly, cows have a virus very similar to smallpox, and making also humans sick. For humans, this is illness is not very dangerous. The viruses were close enough to each other so that having had this virus gave you immunity to smallpox. That's why dairy farmers didn't get smallpox so often.

You do remember correctly -- the disease is called, surprisingly enough, cowpox. It was this disease that Jenner used to create the first smallpox vaccine (which word is derived from the name of the cowpox virus).

Blood shortages, and shelf life

[ZahrGnosis]

I get calls all the time from blood banks asking for donations. Being O-neg makes that happen a lot. They always claim there's a blood shortage on, and I have no reason to doubt them.

Hemopure [can be] stored in a range of temperatures for two years, whereas donated blood has a shelf life of 42 days under refrigerated conditions.

Just can't beat that. If it goes through the same testing that human blood does for HIV and the like, the risk of mad-cow or some other disease being passed is going to be quite low. Anything that makes more blood available to hospitals (or something that can replace blood) is going to save lots of lives.

Why stuff like this doesn't get posted on Slashdot's front page is beyond me.

Re:Blood shortages, and shelf life

[snoop_chili_dog]

Why stuff like this doesn't get posted on Slashdot's front page is beyond me.

The front page is reserved for rob's latest tech show and fight the man stuff. I've started to look in the slashboxes more often. They've got the real meat. Plus you actually get a chance to say something here and get heard. I hate logging in and seeing a good article with 600 posts.

O positive btw. I think that it's actually supposed to be the rarest type. You would think O negative would be the rarest.

Re:Trans-species diseases?

[donutz]

I dunno...I've got a mouth...but no hoofs...(hooves? hoofs? bah)...but i guess if it's foot and mouth disease, we're screwed. :-p

. . .

Trans-species diseases?

[maddogsparky]

I wonder if people who receive this now have to worry about bovine illnesses like hoof and mouth disease?

Re:Trans-species diseases?

[Grootvoet]

If you read the article on the SABC website you will see that the solution should not transmit bovine diseases to humans. More important then foot and mouth disease, which actually is not that dangerous to humans the Mad Cow disease should also not be considered as a potential threath this disease is actually believed to be dangerous for humans.

It does seem like a good blood substitute in certain situation alhtough I forsee problems if implemented as a "normal" transfusion fluid since there are religions that would forbid the use of this substitute. All in all it seems like a good idea, my only wonder is will this blood also clog (spelled right ?) and if so do the bloodtypes that apply to humans apply to cows ?


-= Free your mind and your Ass will follow,

what about all other diseases?

[moksliukas]

What about all other diseases that cows seemed to have been suffering from recently? What about foot and mouth disease? What about mad cow disease?

But then again this could be a good opportunity for a heavily struck beef industry, cause after all this foot and mouth hype noone wants to eat beef anymore.

Re:what about all other diseases?

[Cheese_isgood]

Then again, if it has no side effect, that may be all we'll use cows for in the future. We can already no longer risk and cattle imports.

Smallpox reborn?

[Caid Raspa]

This is an important issue. Small changes in the influenza virus kill lots of people. Now, influenza is a good example of transspecies disease (pigs, ducks, humans ...)

If I remember correctly, cows have a virus very similar to smallpox, and making also humans sick. For humans, this is illness is not very dangerous. The viruses were close enough to each other so that having had this virus gave you immunity to smallpox. That's why dairy farmers didn't get smallpox so often.

If this virus combines with chicken pox or some other smallpox-resembling human disease, the result could be really nasty.

I'd really like to hear some microbiologist's opinions on this. To me, it sounds scary.

Not new stuff.

[snoop_chili_dog]

Popular Science did an article about blood substitutes a couple of years ago. There are a lot of people looking into this. Some are trying to strip the blood cells so that they will all be O negative. That isn't really a blood substitute, but they are trying to solve the problem of matching types.

Another is to use a chemical based on teflon. It naturally dissolves large quantities of oxygen. The experiments on humans came out alright, but after a few days the test subjects showed some enlargement of their liver. This is the same stuff that was shown in the movie The Abyss. The stuff they made the mouse swim around in.