RDT BASED DETECTION OF HEPATITIS B SURFACE ANTIGEN (HBSAG) AMONG BLOOD DONORS AT SPECIALIST HOSPITAL, SOKOTO

Hepatitis B infection is a major global health problem and a potentially life-threatening infection that attacks liver cells caused by Hepatitis B virus and it is characterised by liver cirrhosis, liver scarring, liver failure or cancer of the liver as the disease progresses. This study was carried out to determine theRDT based detection of hepatitis B surface antigen (HbsAg) among blood donors at specialist hospital, Sokoto, Sokoto State Nigeria. Two hundred (200) centrifuged sera from blood donors who have given prior verbal consent to participate in the study were screened for HBsAg using rapid diagnostic test (RDT). The result obtained shows that, 51 out of the 200 blood donors which represented (25.5%) were reactive while 149 were non-reactive. With Chi-square analysis only blood donors that are none previous blood donors showed a significant association with HBV infection, (p-value 0.05). This study however, indicates that, hepatitis B infection occurs in one out of every four blood donors. It also observed that the virus antigen is highly endemic among blood donor and these blood donors can serve as potential reservoir for the transmission of the virus to susceptible host individuals in the study area.