Seroprevalence of Transfusion Transmissible Infections among Blood Donors in Nizamabad District of Telangana State - A six years study

Background: Blood transfusion is a life-saving therapeutic intervention and millions of lives are saved each year globally through this procedure. However, blood transfusions are associated with certain risks which can lead to adverse consequences. It may cause acute or delayed complications and carries the risk of the transmission of blood borne infectious agents. Materials and methods: This study was done in Government general hospital blood bank, Nizamabad district, Telangana state, India. Study duration was six years, from June 2010 to May 2016. Blood was collected from apparently healthy donors after following the questionnaire put forth by National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) through blood camps organized by voluntary organizations, voluntary and replacement donors in the government blood bank and motivated student bodies. Results: In our study, total screening positives were 532 out of the total 55291 units accounting to 0.96%. Among the positives, most of the positives belonged to Hepatitis B virus, HBsAg positives were 384 cases (0.69%), Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) were 117 cases (0.20%), Venereal Disease Research Laboratory test (VDRL) positives were 22 cases (0.03%) and minimal positives were noted in Hepatitis C virus (HCV) those were 09 cases (0.01%). Conclusion: Transfusion of blood and blood products is an established mode of treatment in many conditions. However unnecessary transfusions and unsafe transfusion practices expose patients to the risk of serious adverse transfusion reactions and transfusion-transmitted infections. This risk can be minimized by encouraging voluntary non-remunerative donation and screening of blood for TTI before transfusion with better screening methods like Enzyme Linked Immuno-sorbent Assay (ELISA), Nucleic Acid Amplification technique (NAT).