Hepatitis G virus RNA positivity among the voluntary blood donors: a summary.

Hepatitis virus infection is an increasing problem. Millions of humans all over the world are infected. Viral hepatitis is accepted as a significant public health problem with several life altering complications. Recently, new viruses have been identified for their association with hepatitis. Hepatitis G virus (HGV) is a single stranded RNA virus which represents a newly discovered virus belonging to the flavivirus family. Epidemiological data indicate that the virus is transmitted via blood/blood products, sexually and vertically from infected mothers to children. There are some previous reports on the prevalence of HGV infection among the blood/blood products. The purpose of this study is to summarize the prevalence of HGV infection, defined as HGV RNA positivity, among the voluntary blood donors in the previous reports. Due to this study, there have been at least 30 reports. Of 13,610 documented voluntary donors, there are 649 cases with HGV RNA positivity. The summative percentage for HGV RNA positivity is 4.8%: 4.5% in Caucasian, 3.4 % in Asian and 17.2% in Negroid. There is no significant association between ethnicity of donors and prevalence of HGV RNA positivity (p > 0.05). The HGV infection seems to distribute in all ethnicities all over the world, implying the global importance of this hepatitis virus infection. Screening for HGV RNA might be an important test in blood bank process in the future.