Hepatitis C Virus Infection in Blood Donors: An Emerging Risk to Transfusion Services

Background: Hepatitis C infection is transmissible via transfusion of blood and blood products. Little work exists in local literature on its prevalence. Methods: A prospective study aimed at documenting the sero -prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection in blood donors in a tropical environment. Results: A total of four thousand six hundred and thirty three regular blood donors were screened over a 3 year period. Age of donors ranged between 19 and 42 years with a mean of 33 years. Two hundred and forty one donors (5.2%) were seropositive. Age- specific prevalence rates ranged from 0.09% to 1.7%.Yearly prevalence rates ranged from 3.4% to 6.9%. Conclusions: This study shows that the prevalence of HCV infections in our blood donors is high and requires active and sensitive screening in order to improve the safety of banked blood.