Pre-donation screening of intending blood donors for antibodies to infectious agents in a Nigerian tertiary health institution: a pilot study.

Large pools of blood donors are difficult to get in most donor centres in Nigeria; donors come in trickles and only when there is pressing need. Predonation screening for transmissible agents, using induvidualised rapid screening techniques is often employed to avoid wastage of blood bags and reagents. The aim is to compare the relative prevalences of serum markers of infectious diseases in intending blood donors before blood donation for the purpose of elimination. Both paid and volunteer blood donors were screened for HIV, HbsAg, and HCV antibodies using the rapid test kits. The presence of microfilaria in blood and low haematocrit were also checked for. Prospective donors were initially sorted using a structured questionnaire on risk behaviour and were physically examined. Screenings were done before bleeding them. A total of 1259 donors were screened during the six-month duration of the study and 151 (12%) were rejected. Seropositivity for HBsAg in 69 (5.48%), HCV in 56 (4.45%), HIV in 9 (0.71%) were responsible for the rejection. Fourteen (1.1%) were rejected because of low haematocrit, while two (0.16%) others were not bled because of circulating microfilaria. We conclude that hepatitis viruses were responsible for most cases of donor rejection in Nigeria, post-donation screening for infectious agents lead to wastage of blood bags, problems of decontaminating and discarding infectious blood, and the loss to treatment and follow-up of infected persons who are likely to continue to spread the infectious agents. We therefore suggest pre-donation screening of prospective donors in blood banks.