Abstract
Background: Voluntary non-remunerated blood donation is a strategy adopted by World Health Organization aimed at ensuring safety and adequacy of blood supply. Sub-Saharan Africa has a high prevalence of hemoglobin disorders and therefore needs to adopt stringent measures in donor selection to ensure safety for the recipient of blood transfusion. This study aimed to analyze normal and variant hemoglobin among voluntary blood donors.
 Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 100 prospective blood donors including 55 (55%) males and 45 (45%) females, aged 18–34 years were recruited. Capillary electrophoresis using the Minicap system was used for determining the hemoglobin variants in alkaline buffer (PH 9.4). Data analysis was done using SPSS version 20 and p-value < 0.05 was considered as the level of significance
 Results: The mean age of the participants was 22.23 ± 3.3 SD years. The proportion of participants with genotype AA was 67 (67%), those with AS were 17 (22 %), while those with AC were 11 (11 %). While Hb A ≥ 90% was noted in 67 (67%) blood donors, Hb S was seen in 22 (22%) and Hb A2 > 3.5% in 57 (57%). Hb F > 2% was observed in 3% of the studied participants
 Conclusion: Variant hemoglobin is common among blood donors and this should be taken into consideration whenever blood is being crossmatched for recipients of blood transfusion. Data from this study will be useful in raising awareness and genetic counseling.
 Keywords: prevalence, hemoglobin variants, capillary electrophoresis
Highlights
Structural abnormalities affecting the polypeptide chain of the globin molecule are disorders inherited genetically as occurs in hemoglobin (Hb) C, Hb S, Hb E
Despite stringent measures adopted in blood donor selection criteria, quite a number of blood donors who did not know their carrier status still find their way into blood donor population and this poses a risk to some category of blood transfusion recipients
Our study showed Hb A2 > 3.5% in 57 (57%) blood donors which raises the suspicion of a possibility of β-Thalassemia among blood donors in our environment
Summary
Structural abnormalities affecting the polypeptide chain of the globin molecule are disorders inherited genetically as occurs in hemoglobin (Hb) C, Hb S, Hb E. Hemoglobin electrophoretic analysis of hemoglobin variants in previous studies in Nigeria and other part of sub-Saharan Africa was largely carried out with the use of cellulose acetate method at alkaline pH [7, 9]. For the numerical and qualitative analysis of hemoglobin, superlative similarity between use of capillary electrophoresis and high-performance cation-exchange chromatography (HPLC) has been established and reported in several previous studies [10,11,12]. Sub-Saharan Africa has a high prevalence of hemoglobin disorders and needs to adopt stringent measures in donor selection to ensure safety for the recipient of blood transfusion. Hb F > 2% was observed in 3% of the studied participants Conclusion: Variant hemoglobin is common among blood donors and this should be taken into consideration whenever blood is being crossmatched for recipients of blood transfusion. Data from this study will be useful in raising awareness and genetic counseling
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
