Blood transfusion infection and blood transfusion safety WANG Xing-hua, FANG Guo-en, QI Zhong-tian. The Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China Corresponding autuor: QI Zhong-tian,E-mail:tianhua72@sina.com Abstract Transfusion-transmitted infections have been a major threat to the safety of transfusion, although remarkable advances have been made in the prevention of the major transfusion-transmitted diseases due to improvement in donor screening, testing and viral inactivation of blood products, and rational use of blood in clinical works. At the same time, some established blood-borne pathogens can not yet be detected and cleared thoroughly, besides, novel agents have now appeared, and are still emerging. This presents continuous menaces to the safety of blood transfusion. The authors have highlighted the different transfusion-transmitted infections and the update on the screening technologies, and have focused on the precautionary strategies that can be implemented for improvements in blood safety.