John C Martin Foundation.

The risk of hepatitis B virus (HBV) transmission by transfusion in sub-Saharan Africa is considered to be relatively low, and testing of blood donors is often not done or is done relatively poorly. To reexamine this attitude, we identified HBV chronically infected blood donors from a major hospital in Ghana with a range of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) assays. Test efficacy was estimated using HBV DNA as a gold standard, and the risk of HBV infection in blood recipients was estimated for different testing strategies.

No abstract

Predonation viral screening of blood donors is effective in high endemic areas, and the savings it generates may improve the safety and limit the cost of blood. Communication with deferred donors may contribute to public health. A new screening strategy associating serologic rapid test before donation and NAT on pools of 10 plasma samples after donation is proposed.