Status of infectious disease markers among blood donors in a teaching hospital, Bhairahawa, western Nepal.

A cross-sectional group of 1548 blood donors (voluntary--554 and replacement--994 blood donors) during the period February 2001 to April 2003 at Blood Bank Centre (being run by Nepal Red Cross Society) in our Teaching Hospital in Bhairahawa, were studied and screened for antibodies to Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 and type 2 (HIV- 1 & 2), Hepatitis C virus (HCV) and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) by enzyme immunoassays and for reagin antibody for syphils by (Rapid Plasma Reagin, RPR) flocculation method. The results revealed that the overall prevalence of anti-HIV-1 was 0.13%, anti-HCV--0.13%, HBsAg positivity--0.45% and RPR reactivity for syphilis was 0.39%. HIV and HCV seropositivity was 0.20% and 0.20% respectively among replacement blood donors. None of the voluntary blood donors were found to be seropositive for HIV and HCV antibodies. HBsAg seropositivity was found to be higher among replacement (0.50%) than voluntary blood donors (0.36%). Voluntary blood donors showed a higher RPR seropositivity (0.72%) than replacement blood donors (0.20%). Males constituted 1418 (91.6%) and females were 130 (8.4%) of the total blood donors studied. The highest numbers of blood donors were in the age group of 15-29 years, both for males 902 (58.27%) and females 96 (6.2%). All the seventeen seropositive cases for all the infectious disease markers studied belonged to the sexually active and productive age group of 15-45 years and all seropositives were males except one female case (i.e HBsAg positive). One blood donor was found to be seropositive for both HIV-1 and HCV infections. None was found to be seropositive for HIV-2. Blood group status was also examined for all the blood donors tested. Maximum numbers of blood donors belonged to blood group O--516 (33.33%), followed by B 497 (32.11%), A 407 (26.29%) and AB 128 (8.27%). None of the seropositive blood donor was found to belonged to blood group AB.