Seroprevalence of hepatitis B, hepatitis C, Human Immunodeficiency Virus surface, and syphilis among blood donors: A 6-year report from a sentinel site in Western Himalayas, India.

Sir,

Transfusion-transmitted infections (TTIs) continue to be a threat to safe transfusion practices. A 6-year record-based retrospective study was conducted in a tertiary care teaching hospital located in the rural hilly area of Kangra valley of Western Himalayas, India. The records were retrospectively evaluated with respect to screening outcome for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), anti-HIV, anti-hepatitis C virus (HCV), and VDRL. HIV status of donors was determined by screening for antibodies to HIV-1 and HIV-2 by third-generation rapid immunochromatography sandwich assay. HBsAg and anti-HCV antibodies were determined using commercially available qualitative immunochromatographic assay kits. Antibodies to syphilis were tested in donor samples using qualitative solid phase immunochromatographic assay. The percentage and proportions for each variable were calculated.

A total of 27,995 blood donations were recorded. Among them, 26,306 (94%) were males and 1689 (6%) were females. 13,705 (49%) were voluntary donations and 14,290 (51%) were replacement donations. Yearly distribution of blood donations is shown in Table 1, and yearly distribution of detected seropositivity is given in Table 2.

Table 1

Yearly distribution of blood donors in the study population

Table 2

Year-wise seroprevalence of transfusion-transmitted infections among blood donors

Although various studies on TTI in blood donors are available from different regions of the country, data from a rural area of India are sparse.[1234] The aim of the present study was to know the seroprevalence of transfusion transmissible infections in donors in the Northern hilly state of Himachal Pradesh, India, located in the Western Himalayas. The advantages of this study are that no previous data are available from this rural area for comparison and analysis of time trends which can be derived from this 6-year observation. Further this study will be a reference for future studies to look into the time trends for TTIs from this rural area.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.