Application of gamma irradiation knowledge in tissue sterilisation: inactivation of malaria parasite.

Malaria is one of the exclusion criteria used in selecting tissue donors and the absence of this information can lead to rejection of tissues for transplant. The studies on the malaria parasite have been confined to low dose attenuation of parasites in blood for transfusion purposes. There is no published information relating to the inactivation of malaria parasites with irradiation for the sterilisation of tissues. A dose-surviving parasite population following radiation was replotted using D0 value from a published paper whereby D10 value of 41 Gy was obtained. Calculation of sterilisation dose for achieving SAL 10-6 of malaria parasites demonstrated the effectiveness of the sterilisation dose of 25 kGy being used in tissue banking.