This emergency episode (recorded March 16, 2020) outlines what blood banks, hospitals, and donors need to know about COVID-19 now.

Louis Katz headshot, COVID-19 interview

Dr. Louis Katz

It is March 17, 2020, and the news is filled with information about COVID-19, the disease caused by a new coronavirus called “SARS-CoV-2.” People have lots of questions, including those involved in blood transfusion.

Let’s Bring in Louie!

In order to answer some of those questions, I asked Dr. Louis Katz to join me for a quick, “emergency” discussion on the issues. Lou describes the current challenges and what blood collectors, blood donors, and hospital transfusion services should be doing now.

Louis Katz headshot, COVID-19 interview

Dr. Louis Katz

It is March 17, 2020, and the news is filled with information about COVID-19, the disease caused by a new coronavirus called “SARS-CoV-2.” People have lots of questions, including those involved in blood transfusion.

Let’s Bring in Louie!

In order to answer some of those questions, I asked Dr. Louis Katz to join me for a quick, “emergency” discussion on the issues. Lou describes the current challenges and what blood collectors, blood donors, and hospital transfusion services should be doing now.

No transcript available for this episode

About My Guest:

Dr. Louis Katz is the Chief Medical Officer at Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center in Davenport IA, and chair of the AABB Transfusion-transmitted Diseases (TTD) Committee. He is a board-certified internist and infectious diseases specialist who trained at the University of Iowa, an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine at the Roy and Lucille Carver College of Medicine, and former Chief Medical Officer at America’s Blood Centers in Washington, DC.

Dr. Katz’s transfusion medicine career has been dominated by attention to transfusion transmitted infections. He founded and directed a Ryan White funded comprehensive HIV/AIDS clinic in the Iowa/Illinois Quad Cities, and was an infectious diseases consultant and hospital epidemiologist at Genesis Medical Center until assuming his ABC responsibilities in 2012. He is on the Editorial Board of the journal Transfusion, has served on the FDA Blood Products Advisory Committee as a member, industry representative and chair, and is a past member of the HHS Advisory Committee on Blood and Tissue Safety and Availability. He is the medical director of the Scott County (Iowa) Health Department and The Project of the Quad Cities, an organization providing both HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections services in a bistate area.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed on this episode are those of my guest and I alone, and do not reflect those of the organizations with which either of us is affiliated. Neither Dr. Katz nor I have any relevant financial disclosures.

Thanks to:

Music Credit

Music for this episode includes “Cuando te invade el temor” and “Reflejo,” both by Mar Virtual via the Free Music Archive. Click the image below for permissions and license details.
Creative Commons license and link

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