Will a blood transfusion affect immunity?

If a person who gets a blood transfusion hasn't had a certain disease before gets the transfusion from someone who has had that certain disease, will the reciving person gain active or passive immunity against that disease?

Yes, that is usually why they do a white blood cell transfusion,

* Blood transfusions are given to increase the blood's ability to carry oxygen, to restore the body's blood volume when there has been a great blood loss, to improve the blood's clotting ability, and to improve a recipient's immunity to infection.

* Depending upon the recipient's needs, a doctor may order a whole blood transfusion, or a blood component. Blood components include red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, immunoglobulins, or fresh frozen plasma, which is the liquid part of the blood.

* Whole blood is usually used with patients who have lost a lot of blood, and to make sure the body's tissues are receiving enough oxygen. Red blood cells restore the blood's ability to carry oxygen, such as in patients who are bleeding or have anemia.

* White blood cells are given to patients with life-threatening infections that reduce the white blood cell count.

* Platelets are often given to patients with blood clotting disorders, such as hemophilia or von Willebrand's disease. Plasma also helps with blood clotting, and is often transfused in patients with liver failure.

* Immunoglobulins are the disease fighting components of blood and are also given to build up immunity, especially in patients who have been exposed to an infectious disease or whose antibody levels are low, such as those with AIDS, but the immunity probably will not last.

**Blood components can be separated from a collected bag of whole blood or from a donor's blood flow before collected to a blood bag. This includes platelets and blood plasma.

**Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is a blood product administered intravenously. It contains the pooled IgG immunoglobulins (antibodies extracted from the plasma of thousands of blood donors). IVIG is given as a protein replacement therapy for immune deficient patients which have decreased or abolished antibody production capabilities. IVIG is administered to maintain adequate antibodies levels to prevent infections and confers a passive immunity. IVIG effects last between 2 weeks and 3 months.

I truly hope this information helped you

No

This is a research area with a lot of uncertainty. For some conditions, doctors have detected increased immunity from receiving a transfusion, and with other conditions, immunity is reduced. In either case, the effects are temporary. Antibodies in the blood will work as long as they remain in your blood, but your body will not start producing new antibodies because they were introduced through a transfusion. However, your blood will begin producing antibodies to the foreign blood (this is why donated organs get rejected).

The problem with immunological responses to blood transfusions is that antibodies in the host blood may react to the introduced blood, and vice versa, so the immune system gets hung up as the two blood types treat each other as foreign invaders. They can attack each other, which diminishes the immunological abilities in both types of blood. Not all antibodies react this way, so some particular types of immunity might increase, while overall immunity decreases.