Prevalence of HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and Syphilis in donor’s blood: A study from eastern part of India

Objectives: Voluntary donor selection and screening of donor’s blood for infective agents are the cornerstones of transfusion medicine. Strict donor selection criterion, proper counselling and deferred collection may reduce wastage of resources.Materials and Methods: During the period of 01.01.2007 to 31.12.2008, a total number of 44,173 units of blood were collected from healthy voluntary donors. There were 39,734 males and 4,439 were females with a ratio of 9:1. Age ranged from 18-60 years. Blood was collected CPDA-1 bags.Discussion: All blood samples were tested for HIV I & II, Hepatitis B surface Antigen, Hepatitis C and VDRL (Reagin) for Syphilis. It was observed that 283 tested positive for HIV (0. 64%), 1001 were positive for HbsAg (2.27%), 717 were positive for HCV (1.62%) and 577(1.31%) were Reagin (VDRL) positive. Total 2,578 Units (5.8%) of blood were discarded due to presence of infective agents. There was a significant increment in HbsAg prevalence among blood donors from 2007 to 2008.Conclusion: Strict quality control, proper counselling of donors and training of blood transfusion personnel including deferring of suspected donors may help wastage of huge resources and reduce inventory.