Sreenivas N1, Kunal Puri2, Shubha Jayaram3
BACKGROUND: Blood transfusion is an essential element of a health care system. Safety of blood transfusion is of extreme importance in order to avoid any severe morbidity and mortality in the patient. By screening donated blood units, we get a clue of the prevalence of those infections among donor populations and consequently the safety of collected donations. It also gives us an idea of the prevalence of the Transfusion transmissible infections (TTIs) in the community
OBJECTIVES: To find out the sero-prevalence of TTIs namely HBV (Hepatitis B) in the blood donor population at MMC&RI, Mysore. To stratify sero prevalence of TTIs based on the age and sex of the donor population
METHODOLOGY: The present study was carried out in the Blood Bank, Mysore Medical College and Research Institute, Mysore during the period from November 2012 to May 2014 among 14075 blood donors. All the samples were screened for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) by ELISA method.
RESULTS: Out of a total of 14075 blood donors, a total of 103 tested positive for TTIs. 94.08% were males and remaining 5.92% were females. A majority of donors were voluntary donors (85.79%) and a majority of the donors were between the age group of 18-39 years (78.17%). The prevalence rate of HBV in blood donors was 0.73%. The seroprevalence in voluntary donors was 0.57% and in replacement donors was 1.75 % respectively.
CONCLUSION: Voluntary blood donation is safe, compared to replacement as high prevalence of Hepatitis B is observed in replacement donors.
