investigation of human parvovirus b19 prevalence in a large healthy umbilical cord blood donors

background and objectives: umbilical cord blood (ucb) was used to source hematopoietic stem cells in the past. despite the apparent advantages of ucb transplantation, virus reactivation poses a considerable danger in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (hsct). human parvovirus b19 is regarded as a potential threat to ucb contamination. this study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of parvovirus b19 in cord blood donors by semi-nested pcr. this study is the first large- scale report of the b19 dna in cord blood donors in iran. materials and methods: a total of 691 umbilical cord blood were collected under standard procedure. then, dna from buffy coat and plasma were extracted, and semi-nested pcr was performed for all samples. results: two out of 691 samples (0.29%) indicated viremia in plasma and buffy coat. conclusion: in this line, designing and validating a quantitative pcr assay for detection, quantification, and discrimination of human b19 dna genotypes of cord blood donors is necessary to enhance the safety of this source of stem cells.