تقييم تحري العامل الأسترالي في مراكز نقل الدم السورية

Abstract EN

Background: HBsAg is the only obligatory HBV screening test of blood donors to exclude transfusion transmitted HBV infection in Syria.

Aim of the study: Evaluating effectiveness of HBsAg-only screening practice carried out by Syrian blood transfusion centers in detecting potentially HBV infectious blood units.

Materials and Methods: A cohort cross-sectional prospective study included 3896 healthy blood donors.

All donors were tested for both HBsAg and anti-HBc.

HBsAg-negative, anti-HBc-positive sera were further tested for anti-HBs and ‘anti-HBc alone’ sera were considered for HBV real-time PCR.

Results: Sixty-six blood donors were positive for HBsAg.

Among 3830 HBsAg-negative donors, 402 (10.4%) were anti-HBc-positive 339 of which were anti-HBc-positive, anti-HBs-positive.

The remaining 63 donors were 'anti-HBc alone' and 5 of them (5 of 63, 7.9%) were HBV DNA-positive.

Conclusion: Occult hepatitis B infection might be detected in HBsAg-negative blood donors.

Therefore, implementing additional serological or molecular tests to enhance blood transfusion safety is highly recommended.