Patent ID: 7833758

Claim:
A method of preparing a blood supply comprising whole blood, plasma or serum, substantially free of West Nile Virus (WNV) comprising: (a) screening aliquots of whole blood, plasma or serum from a plurality of collected blood samples by a detection method for detecting the presence of WNV, the detection method comprising: (i) isolating nucleic acids from each of the aliquots of whole blood, plasma or serum; (ii) amplifying the isolated nucleic acids and an internal control sequence using a sense and an antisense primer wherein each of the sense and antisense primers is not more than about 60 nucleotides in length and is sufficiently complementary to a portion of the antisense and sense strands, respectively, of the isolated nucleic acid to hybridize therewith to allow amplification of WNV nucleic acids, if present in said isolated nucleic acids, and wherein the internal control sequence comprises the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NO:17 and is capable of amplification by said sense and antisense primers; (iii) detecting the presence of the amplified WNV nucleic acids as an indication of the presence of WNV in the blood sample; and (iv) detecting the presence of the amplified internal control sequence using an internal control probe that is specific for the internal control sequence; (b) eliminating blood samples in which WNV is detected; and (c) combining blood samples in which WNV is not detected, thereby to provide a blood supply substantially free of WNV.