Patent ID: 8808977

Claim:
A method for reducing the virus load from a whole blood sample, comprising: (a) removing an amount of whole blood from a patient, a blood bag, or a blood storage device, wherein the removed whole blood contains at least one virus selected from the group consisting of Sindbis virus (SINV) and vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV); (b) adding a sufficient amount of an anticoagulant to the removed whole blood; (c) centrifugally separating the anticoagulated whole blood into a plasma fraction containing said at least one virus and a red blood cell containing fraction; (d) performing a light treatment on the separated plasma fraction, comprising: (i) mixing a photosensitizer methylene blue with the separated plasma fraction by means of a peristaltic pump to enable an interaction between the photosensitizer methylene blue and the at least one virus present in the separated plasma fraction; illuminating the photosensitizer methylene blue-plasma mixture with a 600-700 nm wavelength LED for 60 seconds; and filtering the photosensitizer methylene blue and virus from the plasma mixture by passing the photosensitizer methylene blue-plasma mixture illuminated from step (d)(ii) through a filter comprising attapulgite, thereby providing a light-treated plasma; (e) mixing the light-treated plasma from step (d)(iii) with the separated red blood cell containing fraction from step (c) to form a reconstituted whole blood; and (f) transfusing the reconstituted whole blood into the patient, blood bag, or blood storage device, wherein the sequence of steps (c) to (e) are performed once or multiple times prior to the transfusing of step (f), and wherein, once sufficient treated reconstituted whole blood is obtained, the whole blood is simultaneously removed from the patient, blood bag, or blood storage device through a first tube while treated reconstituted whole blood is transfused back into the patient, blood bag, or blood storage device through a second tube.