Prevalence of Transfusion Transmitted Infections amongBlood Donors of a Teaching Hospital in Islamabad

Objective: The objective of the current study was to evaluate the prevalence and incidence of HBV, HCV, HIV, Syphilis and Malaria in the donated blood processed in a teaching hospital in the capital city of Pakistan Study Design: Retrospective Single Centre Cross Sectional Study Place and Duration of the Study: January 2010 to December 2011 at the Federal Government Polyclinic (FGPC) Hospital, the second largest tertiary care hospital in IslamabadMaterial and Methods: All blood donations were screened for HBsAg, Anti-HCV and Anti-HIV by ELISA and Syphilis and Malarial Parasite by Slide Agglutination and Immunochromatographic Technique (ICT) respectively. The results were compared with previous domestic studies. Results: A total of 10,145 blood donations were evaluated during the study period (2 years). Majority of the donations (94%) came off the replacement donors while only 6% were from voluntary non-remunerated blood donation (VNRBD). Amongst these donations, 1,454 (14.34%) were infected at least with one pathogen while 8,691 (85.66%) were cleared for transfusion. Prevalence for HCV, HBV, HIV, Syphilis and Malaria were found to be 8.34%, 3.91%, 0%, 0.89% and 1.20% respectively. There has been a substantial increase in the incidence of HCV and HBV infections while changes observed in frequency of Syphilis and Malaria were insignificant and no case reported for HIV. Conclusion: The practice of offering replacement and/or paid donors in bargain with screened blood from hospitals, is contributing towards a high frequency of HCV infection in donated blood. It could be avoided by promoting the culture of VNRBD and disseminating its philosophy in the society to mobilize and motivate donors. In addition, screening of blood and its components by quality assured methods, following uniform instructions and SOPs might improve the situation.