Screening Donated Blood for Transfusion-Transmissible Cytomegalovirus Infection among Libyans

Abstract

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a ubiquitous DNA-containing herpesvirus causes severe and fatal diseases in immunocompromised patients and a prevalent cause of virus-associated birth defects. Blood transfusion donated for neonates, pregnant women, and immunocom-promised patients should be adequately screened for evidences of CMV infection prior to use in clinical management. The effective national programmes for quality-assured screening of donated blood have not yet been fully established, hence this study was undertaken to assess whether any bloodborne-CMV infections pose a significant threat to the safety of the blood supplies. A total of 200 voluntary blood donor subjects admitted to the Blood Bank of Benghazi/Libya were screened for transfusion-transmissible CMV (TT-CMV) using a highly sensitive CMV total IgG and IgM antibody enzyme immunoassay as well as CMV pp65 anti-genemia assays. We determined that the overall seropositivity for IgG antibodies (80.50%) was higher than that of IgM antibodies (39.00%), but only 2 (1.00%) individuals out of these donors were seropositive for the CMV-antigenic protein pp65. The frequency of CMV infection based on gender was incomparable due to the small population number of blood-donated females. According to age, there was not influence of various age groups on prevalence of anti-CMV IgG antibodies, while a progressive increase in seropositivity of CMV-IgM antibodies with age was detected. The age groups were not significantly associated with CMV prevalence. In contrast, only 2 (1.00%) patients were shown to be positive for all three performed assays indicating a recurrent infection. Our findings prove a risk of primary transfusion-associated transmission of CMV and may provide a policy guidance on ensuring safe blood supplies accessible to all patients who require transfusion.