RESUMEN
Although screening for anti – HCV in blood donors has been introduced in several countries, it is not yet widely implemented in developing countries, due to increasing cost and unknown prevalence rates among different populations. This study was undertaken to study the prevalence of anti - HCV in Northeastern Thai blood donor by second – generation ELISA reagent (UBI HCV EIA). Sera of 896 blood donors were screened for anti – HCV. There were 695 males and females. The age range was 17 – 60 years. The prevalence rate for anti – HCV in our blood donors was 0.89% (8 in 896). Anti – HCV was detected in 7 of 695 males (1%) and only one in 201 (0.5%) females. The results demon strate no statistical difference according to sex or age. However, it was interesting that confection with HBV which HBsAg was also detected, existed in 3 of the 8 who were seropositive for HCV.
RESUMEN
The prevalence of cytomegalovirus antibody was studied in sera of 359 Northeastern blood donors with an age range of 17-59 years by ELISA for anti-CMV total antibody (anti-CMV). Anti-CMV was detected in 93.31% (335/359) of blood donors. The prevalence in males was 91.53% (227 in 248) while female donors showed 97.30% (108 in 111) positive for anti-CMV. The result demonstrated no statistically significant difference according to sex or age. One-hundred and eighty serum samples with positive anti-CMV were reexamined for anti-CMV IgM antibody. Only one sample was found to be positive. This study suggested that CMV seronegative blood supply was very limitted. Therefore leucocyte-depleted blood should be the method of choice for prevention of post-transfusion CMV infections in high risk recipients.
RESUMEN
The screening tests for donor blood samples in blood bank are important to prevent the recipients from blood transmitted diseases. The common hepatitis viruses that are transmitted through blood transfusion are hepatitis B and hepatitis C viruses. The objective of this study is to investigate the prevalence of hepatitis B and C virus infections in the first donating blood donor in the YALA province from January 2001 to December 2005 by retrospective analysis of data from laboratory record of the YALA regional hospital. The total number of the first time blood donors was 11,611. Amongst these, hepatitis B virus infected donors were 310 (2.67%) consisting of 262 males (2.78%) and 48 females (2.17%). The prevalence of hepatitis C virus infected donors was 183 (1.58%) with 164 males (1.74%) and 19 females (0.86%). Hepatitis B virus infections were mostly found in age ranging of 36-45 years old (2.92%) where as hepatitis C virus infections were mostly found in 26-35 years of age (2.21%). However, there were no statistically significant associations between the prevalences with the age groups and sexes of people who were infected with hepatitis B viruses but statistically significant associations between the prevalences with the age groups and sexes were found in the hepatitis C virus infections (P=0.003; chi-square test). These data form basic information on the prevalences of viral hepatitis infections in the YALA province would be useful for strategic planning in donor recruitment and blood transfusion.