Pre-donation screening of intending blood donors for antibodies to infectious agents in a Nigerian tertiary health institution

Abstract

Large pools of blood donors are difficult to get in most donor centres in Nigeria ; donors come in trickles and only when there is pressing need . Predonation screening for transmissible agents, using individualized rapid screening technique s is often employed to avoid wastage of blood bags and reagents. The aim is to compare the relative prevalences of serum markers of infectious disease s in intending blood donors before blood donatio n f or the purpos e of elimination . Both paid and volunteer blood donors were screened for HIV, HbsAg . and H C V antibodies using the rapid test kits. The presence of microfilaria in blood and low haematocrit were also checked for. Prospective donors were initially sorted using a structured questionnaire on risk behaviour and were physically examined . Screenings were done before bleeding them. A total of 1259 donors were screened during the six-month duration of the study and 151 (12% ) were rejected . Seropositivity for HBsA g in 6 9 (5.48%), H C V in 56 (4.45%), H I V in 9 (0.71% ) wer e responsibl e f o r t h e rejection. Fourteen (1.1 % ) were rejected because of l ow haematocrit, while t w o (0.16% ) others were not bled because of circulations microfilaria . We conclude that hepatitis viruses were responsible f or most cases of donor rejection in Nigeria , post-donation screening f o r infectious agents lead to wastage of blood bags, problems of decontaminating and discarding infectious blood , and the loss to treatment and follow-up of infected person s w h o a r e likely to continue to spread the infectious agents. We therefore suggest pre-donation screening of prospective donors in blood banks