Well, there would have to be a Health Canada approved test before we would be allowed to implement it.
Let's get back to the Babesia question because that is of concern to Canadian Blood Services and to Héma-Québec.
A couple of years ago we carried out a large donor prevalence study because we were well aware there were cases of transfusion transmission of Babesia, particularly in the northeastern U.S. where it's, as you know, transmitted by the same tick as Lyme disease. This does cause illness in transfusion recipients.
Because Babesia is not a reportable disease in Canada, we really don't have much data on babesiosis in this country. In this prevalence study, we looked at donors for antibodies to Babesia to see whether donors had recently been infected or had ever been infected. Out of the approximately 14,000 donors that we tested, zero were positive, so we did not see any Babesia in the blood donors that we tested.
However, we are well aware there was a case of transfusion transmission of babesiosis in Canada in 1998. This was a case where a donor had travelled to Cape Cod. Then there is the recent endemic case that you described in Manitoba. We are repeating that prevalence study next year. We're in the planning phase for that, and we will increase the number of donors that we survey.