Hepatitis B virus DNA viral load determination in hepatitis B surface antigen–negative Swiss blood donors

Abstract

The highly sensitive HBV NAT assay with a threshold significantly below 10 IU/mL is a valuable alternative to anti-HBc and a less sensitive HBV NAT screening in blood donor screening.

The yield of universal antibody to hepatitis B core antigen donor screening in theNetherlands, a hepatitis B virus low‐endemic country

“…It remains controversial whether the number of intercepted infectious HBsAg‐negative donations outweighs the loss of anti‐HBc–positive noninfectious donors. While Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands have recently implemented anti‐HBc screening, Australia and Switzerland decided against it, and implemented ID‐NAT screening to limit potential donor loss . To our knowledge this is the first national evaluation of anti‐HBc donor screening in a setting with existing HBV NAT MP6 screening (plus HBsAg testing), in a population not previously tested for anti‐HBc.…”

“…The (estimated) prevalence of OBI in donor populations of low‐endemic countries strongly depends on the LOD of HBV NAT screening and varies between 0.1% and 3.7% . Recent studies from Switzerland and South Africa using ID‐NAT emphasize that the majority of donors with OBI (75 and 61%, respectively) have viral loads below 20 IU/mL and would slip through HBV NAT MP6 screening . Since virtually all donors with OBI have detectable anti‐HBc, the residual risk associated with OBI below the limit of HBV NAT detection will be eliminated by universal anti‐HBc screening .…”

Occult Hepatitis Infection in Transfusion Medicine: Screening Policy and Assessment of Current Use of Anti-HBc Testing

“…Another concern refers to the detection limit that should be considered in donor screening programs. In a recent study [69], it was shown that a hypothetical detection limit below 5 IU/ml could be advisable since in a cohort of Swiss donors 1.2% of the reactive samples had a viral load below 10 IU/ml.…”

Low Prevalence of Occult Hepatitis B Infection Among Blood Donors in Beirut, Lebanon: Reconsider the Deferral Strategy of Anti-HBc Positive Blood Donors

“…Occult HBV infection (OBI) was defined by an international workshop held in 2008 as the "presence of HBV DNA in liver (with a viral load of < 200 IU/mL or undetectable HBV DNA in the serum) of individuals testing hepatitis B surface antigen negative by currently available assays" (6)(7)(8). The prevalence of OBI carriers was shown to be more prominent since the introduction of HBV DNA nucleic acid testing (NAT) in blood transfusion centers across all continents with yield varying from 0.1% to 4.16% (2)(3)(4)(5)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22).…”