Hepatitis C Virus Antibody Among Blood Donors: The Experience in a Nigerian Blood Transfusion Service Centre
Date
2013
Authors
Dapus, D.O
Piwuna, T.O
Joseph, D.E
Ogbenna, A.A
Kut, S.D
Godit, P
Bodunde, T
Chetle, L.D
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Global Advanced Research Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences
Abstract
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is one of the blood borne viral agents of significant worldwide medical concern
because of post transfusion hepatitis. This study is to determine baseline data on HCV in our blood
service to guide future planning towards the quality of blood transfusion. All consenting blood donors
between January and March 2013 were screened with ELISA for hepatitis C virus antibody and their
ABO blood groups determined. The subjects were 2382 (87.5%) voluntary and 339 (12.5%) family
replacement blood donors. The overall prevalence of HCV antibody among our subjects was 6.1%.
There were 156 (6.6%) sero positive HCV reactions among the voluntary blood donors which is
significantly higher than 10 (3.0%) observed among family replacement donors; p=0.01. The sex
prevalence of HCV among the male and female donors were 6.2% and 5.9% respectively; p=0.7. The
highest prevalence of 12.6% was recorded among donors aged 46-55 years. The rate of HCV antibody
positivity was 8.4% among new voluntary non remunerated blood donors, 2.5%, 3.0%, and 8.6% among
regular voluntary non remunerated blood donors, family replacement blood donors and lapsed donors
respectively. The differences in the HCV prevalence among the ABO blood groups were not significant;
p>0.05. We conclude that HCV infection is common among all types of blood donors.
Description
Scholarly article
Keywords
Hepatitis C virus , Blood donors , Blood Service , Transfusion hepatitis , Research Subject Categories::MEDICINE
Citation
Dapus, D.O., Piwuna, T.O., Joseph, D.E., Ogbenna, A.A., Kut, S.D., Godit, P., Bodunde, T. and Chetle, L.D. (2013). Hepatitis C Virus Antibody Among Blood Donors: The Experience in a Nigerian Blood Transfusion Service Centre. Global Advanced Research Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences, 2(5), 108-113.