Harjot Kaur1, Parul Garg2, Nirmaljot Kaur3, Harmandeep Singh4 Guneet Kaur Bakshi5, Amandeep Kaur6, Danish Sood7, Shilpa8
BACKGROUND
Blood transfusion has been a boon to medical science, but at the same time, it
exposes millions of people to transfusion transmitted infections (TTI). TTI are the
infections that are transmissible from one person to another through parenteral
administration of blood / blood products. Various TTIs are hepatitis C (HCV),
hepatitis B (HBV), syphilis, human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) and malaria.
With increasing use of blood transfusion, chances of transmission of TTIs is very
common but proper screening of donor blood has reduced the chances of TTI.
The present study was done to know the seroprevalence of HCV, HBV, HIV and
syphilis and their coinfections.
METHODS
A retrospective study was conducted by reviewing the records from January 2015
to December 2019 at a blood bank of Guru Ram Das Institute of Medical Sciences
and Research at Amritsar, Punjab. Number of donors included in the study were
43,037. All the donors who came to blood bank were tested for TTIs by enhanced
chemiluminescent immunoassay.
RESULTS
Number of donors tested for TTI was 43,037. Out of 43037, 1739 patients had
serological evidence of TTIs, out of which 1669 (96.19 %) had mono-infection and
70 (4.04 %) had coinfections. HCV & HBV (28 / 70) was the most common
combination, followed by HCV & HIV (20 / 70), HCV & syphilis (9 / 70), HIV &
syphilis (5 / 70), HBV & syphilis (3 / 70) and HBV & HIV (1 / 70). Two donors had
HIV, HCV & syphilis coinfections and two donors had HIV, HBV & HCV coinfections.
CONCLUSIONS
The present study documents the high prevalence of TTI out of which hepatitis C
is the most common followed by hepatitis B. Among coinfections, two most
prevalent coinfections are HCV & HBV and HCV & HIV and it is important to screen
for these coinfections due to their impact on the course of disease as well as
quality of life. This shows the increasing evidence of transfusion transmissible
infection in blood donors in spite of advanced and vigilant screening of donated
blood prior to transfusion. So, strategies should be devised for monitoring the
implementation of post donation counselling for recruitment of safe donors.
