A high prevalence of antibodies to hepatitis C virus among commercial plasma donors from Western India.

A very high prevalence of anti-hepatic C virus (anti-HCV) antibodies (63/73, 86.3%) was noted among commercial plasma donors of an organization manufacturing blood products, studied in 1989. Retrospective serological analysis of these donors revealed continued high prevalence of anti-HCV, i.e. 35/40 (87.5%) in 1988, 28/31 (90.3%) in 1987 and 86/94 (91.4%) in 1986. HCV RNA detection by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) demonstrated 15/33 (45.45%) plasma donors to be positive in 1989. Interestingly, 3/24 (12.5%) serum samples collected from employees of the organization were also anti-HCV positive. All three anti-HCV positive employees were directly associated with plasmapheresis. Of the three anti-HCV positive employees one had been anti-HCV positive since 1985, but the other two employees were negative during 1985-1987 and then became positive in 1987 and remained positive in 1989. One of these two employees was also a plasma donor. Commercial blood donors from a local blood bank had anti-HCV prevalence of 13% which was significantly lower (P < 0.001) when compared with plasma donors of the organization and significantly higher than volunteer blood donors (< 0.25%, P < 0.01).