Transfusion transmitted diseases among blood donors of Basrah blood bank

Abstract EN

Objective: The aim of this work is to estimate the prevalence of transfusion transmitted diseases in blood donors of Basrah blood bank, with special entity of AID’S, hepatitis B and C, and syphilis.

Methods: A retrospective record based study involved the records of Basrah blood bank for the years 2006, 2007, and 2008.

The reported results of the serological screening tests of the blood donors for HIV and HCV, HBV, and Venereal Disease Reference Laboratory (VDRL) for the diagnosis of syphilis were analyzed.

Results: The study showed that the highest number of donors was in the year 2007 with the predominance of males than females for the three studied years, the overall prevalence of HBsAg was 0.22%, of HCV was 0.08% and of VDRL was 0.05%.

The difference of prevalence of transfusion transmitted diseases among different age groups was statistically significant (p<0.01), where the prevalence of hepatitis B was highest at the two age extremes (<20 years and ≥50 years), for hepatitis C the highest prevalence was at the age groups between 40- 49 years and for syphilis, the highest prevalence was at the age groups between 20-29 years.

The prevalence of hepatitis B and syphilis was higher among males while the prevalence of hepatitis C was higher among females (50.0%) with no significant difference (p>0.05).

The difference of prevalence of transfusion transmitted diseases by place of residence was statistically highly significant (p<0.001), where the prevalence of hepatitis B was higher among rural donors, while the prevalence of hepatitis C and syphilis was higher among urban donors.

Conclusions: Blood is still one of the main sources of transmission of infections; and hepatitis B, hepatitis C viruses and syphilis are prevalent among donors except HIV virus which is not detected among studied donors.