The Prevalence of the Hepatitis B Core Antibody and the Occult Hepatitis B Infection Among Voluntary Blood Donors in Chennai, India

Abstract

Introduction:The infection with the Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) is a global health problem which affects 2 billion people worldwide. In India, the prevalence of the Hepatitis B infection is 4% in the general population. The prevalence of the HBV infection in voluntary blood donors is 1-3%. It has been reported that the viraemia continues even after the clinical recovery from the acute HBV infection. Some blood donors who were negative for the surface antigen but positive for the core antibody have been reported to transmit HBV, leading to acute hepatitis. This study was done to determine the seroprevalence of the hepatitis B core antibody in voluntary blood donors in Chennai, India. Conclusion:If a routine screening of the sera for the core antibody is not done, the low-level HBV viraemia may not be identified. The absence of the surface antigen in the blood of apparently healthy individuals may not be sufficient to ensure the lack of the circulating virus.MahesWari K s, arun r , aruMugaM P

The Role of Hepatitis B Core Antibody Testing in Improving Blood Safety in Resource-Limited Countries Study on Voluntary Blood Donors Fayoum, Egypt

“…We examined 800 HBsAg negative sera obtained from healthy blood donors and found that 12.37% of them were positive for anti-HBc, which is comparable to two previous Egyptian studies with a prevalence of 14.2% and 10.9% of HBsAg negative volunteer blood donors [1,17]. The study is also comparable to the older anti-HBc prevalence rates reported among HBsAgnegative blood donors in India; 10.01% [9] and 11.2% in Syria [10], respectively.…”

“…In contrast, limited-resources developing countries cannot implement NAT for screening of all donors collected blood and are relying on proper donor selection which is complemented by sensitive cost effective serological screening tests to exclude the transmission of infective agents [9,10].…”

Efficacy of combined HBsAg, anti-HBc and anti-HBs screening in minimizing transfusion transmission risk of hepatitis B infection in low resource setting

“…In the present study, 0.83% of the samples were positive for HBsAg which is similar to other Indian studies [ 18 , 19 ]. However, the prevalence of anti-HBc (22.81%) was higher than most of the other studies across the country, where prevalence is reported between 0 and 15% [ [20] , [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] ].…”

Occult Hepatitis B in Patients with Decompensated Chronic Liver Disease: A Cross Sectional Study at Tertiary Care Hospital, Peshawar

“…Their results were dierent compared to our studies due to dierent diagnostic methods used. 16 Similarly, another study done in Eastern India showed a prevalence of 17.8 per cent, which is lower than our results. 17 Their study population was HIVinfected patients, and using tenofovir as ARV therapy could be the reason for the lower prevalence.…”