Course and frequency of TTI among blood donors- A five year experience in a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Blood transfusion forms an indispensable part of medical and surgical therapy; therefore transmission of infectious diseases through donated blood is of concern to transfusion safety. Objectives: 1) To screen all the blood donors for transfusion transmissible infections (TTI) HIV, HBV, HCV, Syphilis and Malaria during the 5 years study period from 2013-2017.; 2) To estimate the seroprevalence and study the trend of these 5 TTI among the donors over a period of five years.; 3) To estimate and compare the blood donors by type of donation (indoor or outdoor) and gender wise. Materials and Methods: A total of 78,733 donors were analyzed and tested for the prevalence of Transfusion Transmitted. Infections (TTI) over a period of 5 years study period. Result: Out of 78,733 bags screened, 71,966 were collected in outdoor blood donation camps whereas 6,767 donations were collected indoors, in our blood bank. With 69,473 donations (88%), male donors clearly outnumbered female donors (12%). Seroprevalence was overall highest for HBsAg (1.05%) followed by HCV (0.44%), HIV (0.25%), syphilis (0.05%) and malaria (0.01%). The overall seropositivity in males was higher (1.89%) as compared to females (1.16%). Seropositivity was higher for all TTI in the indoor donors. Conclusion: The latest study highlights that blood transfusion is still one of the major means of contracting infections like HIV, HBV, HCV and syphilis. Male voluntary donors dominate the donor subpopulation. HBV is the most and syphilis the least common TTI affecting blood donors. All TTI except syphilis are showing a significant downtrend in overall seroprevalence through the study years. Keywords: TTI, HIV, Blood donors, Voluntary, Seropositivity.