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To increase protection against the potentially life threatening consequences of bacterial contamination in platelet components, the Swiss Red Cross committed to deploy the INTERCEPT Blood System in a minimum of 11 of the Red Cross blood centers. Cerus is pleased to announce that all 13 centers within the Swiss Red Cross system are now of deploying the INTERCEPT Blood System for platelets. The three first sites, Basel, Zurich, and Lausanne, began routine production as scheduled in January 2011. Routine implementation for all remaining sites is targeted to be complete within 2011. Upon announcement of the original contract, Dr. Rudolf Schwabe, Chief Executive Officer of the Swiss Red Cross Blood Service commented, "We are following our health authority's recommendation to introduce pathogen inactivation, which is also consistent with our commitment to providing patients in Switzerland with the highest quality blood components available. The deployment of INTERCEPT for platelets will further safeguard the blood supply."
Over 30,000 platelet doses are prepared and transfused annually in Switzerland. The blood service intends to leverage the economic benefits of the INTERCEPT Dual Storage processing set which facilitates the treatment and storage of double dose platelet units with a single treatment set. INTERCEPT's robust leukocyte inactivation capacity also allows the blood service to eliminate gamma irradiation of treated platelets.
The Swiss regulatory body, Swissmedic, approved the use of platelet components treated with the INTERCEPT Blood System in 2009. Swissmedic subsequently approved the use of plasma components treated with the INTERCEPT Blood System in 2010. To date, the INTERCEPT Blood System is the only technology approved in Switzerland for pathogen inactivation treatment of platelet and plasma components on a single platform. As a result, the approval of the INTERCEPT plasma system provides Swiss blood centers the opportunity to take advantage of the natural synergy between the platelet and plasma treatment processes.
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