Trend of Infectious Disease Positivity in Exchange and Voluntary Blood Donors at Regional Blood Centre, Karachi

Abstract

Abstract: Background: Pakistan has a high prevalence of hepatitis and increasing prevalence of HIV, these infections imply a serious risk to the health of those who need blood transfusions. As blood donors are generally considered as the healthy population, assessing the risk of these silent killers in the blood donors can overall help in understanding the potential impact of these infections on the general population.

Objective: As the TTI prevalence is increasing rapidly in our region, it is much needed to take necessary actions for its prevention. The first step should be the actual frequency of these TTI’s in healthy blood donors, so our study aimed to identify the positive ratio of Hep B, Hep C, HIV, malaria and syphilis in exchange and voluntary blood donors, their comparison and need of effective testing.

Materials and Methods: It is a retrospective analysis in which all the data is taken from BBMIS software and analyzed by SPSS version 23. We included 56732 donors from 2020-2022. Screening of Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV was done by Chemoimmunoliscence (CLIA) whereas ICT based screening was done for Syphilis and Malaria.

Result: Among donors, 50147 (88.4%) were exchange while 6585 (11.6%) were voluntary donors. The frequency of HCV was 3.1% followed by HbsAg (2.3%) and syphilis (1.6%), HIV 0.3% and the least was malaria 0.2%. As 88% of the donors were exchange, TTI positivity was also more in them.

Conclusion: The prevalence of TTI in donors of RBC Karachi is worrysome. It highlights the fact of Nucleic Acid testing significance. Though CLIA is a sensitive technique, 100% safety of blood products requires the implication of Nucleic Acid testing, moreover the implication of voluntary blood donation should also be considered significantly.