[Prevalence of hepatitis C virus in blood donors and comparison of 4 different anti-HCV differentiation tests].

In 1994 we tested 30,208 blood donations in Lübeck with the Abbott HCV EIA 2.0. 88 specimens of 47 blood donors who were repeatedly reactive were the basis of comparative investigations with the Chiron RIBA HCV 2.0 and 3.0, the Abbott Matrix HCV, the Wellcozyme HCV Western Blot (Murex) and the PCR (Amplicor HCV Test, Roche Diagnostic Systems). Our results suggest that the minimal prevalence of HCV RNA amounts to approximately 0.13%, the incidence per year to 0.013%. The minimal prevalence of anti-HCV amounts to 0.27%. Anti-core antibodies are the most frequent anti-HCV antibodies. They may be the only detectable antibodies during the early phase of the infection. The Chiron RIBA HCV 3.0 with the synthetic peptide c22p is not sufficiently sensitive for anti-core antibodies and may therefore fail to recognize viremic specimens.