[Prevention of the post-transfusion hepatitis].

For prophylaxis of posttransfusion hepatitis three procedures can be considered: 1. recognition of "infectious" blood donors, 2. elimination of the infectious agent from the blood units (or blood derivatives), 3. protection of the recipient by immunophrophylaxis. Among all available methods screening of blood donors for hepatitis B antigen (HB-sAg) by a sensitive test (e.g. radioimmunoassay or reversed passive hemagglutination) is presently the most efficient. Despite this precaution it can be estimated that three to four cases of overt posttransfusion hepatitis will still occur in 1000 transfusions in this country. A number of these might be due to agents other than hepatitis B virus, but another proportion may also be attributed to non-transfusion-induced infection originating from the hospital environment. Efforts are required to reduce this source of infection.