Occult hepatitis B virus infection in Thai blood donors

Abstract

The majority of donors detected during routine screening, who were HBsAg negative and NAT reactive, had an occult HBV infection, thus validating the decision to introduce NAT for blood donations in Thailand.

Occult hepatitis B infection in blood donors from South East Asia: molecular characterisation and potential mechanisms of occurrence

“…Among these 29 unclassified cases, eight were from Hong Kong, four from Malaysia, four from Singapore, and 13 from Thailand (table 1). A percentage of window period infection of 2.5 and 21 was observed in Hong Kong (unpublished data) and was previously reported in Thailand 22. Therefore it may be estimated that at least 18 of the 21 HBV-seronegative/DNA-positive donors from Hong Kong and Thailand were seronegative OBIs.…”

Two cases of asymptomatic HBV “vaccine breakthrough” infection detected in blood donors screened for HBV DNA

“…To our knowledge, these cases are novel in Australia. Similar occurrences have been reported in paediatric transfusion recipients in Taiwan 7 and in blood donors in the United States 5 , 6 and Thailand 8 . They are distinct from chronic (ie, anti‐HBc positive) occult HBV infection, which is characterised by undetectable HBsAg and very low levels of HBV DNA 9 .…”

Routine screening of blood donations at Qingdao central blood bank, China, for hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA with a real‐time, multiplex nucleic acid test for HBV, hepatitis C virus, and human immunodeficiency virus Types 1 and 2

“…Taking into account these results, the NAT‐only yield rate was 0.06%. Previous studies from this region have reported HBV NAT‐yield rates from 0.005% to 0.11% . However, it should be noted that these studies used NAT with different sensitivities ranging from 3.8 to 18.8 IU/mL as well as different formats for testing, from individual donor testing to pools of 8.…”