NUCLEIC ACID TESTING FOR HEPATITIS C VIRAL DETECTION IN ANTI HCV NEGATIVE BLOOD DONORS

Background and Objectives: Transfusion associated hepatitis C is quite common world over. In developing centuries like Pakistan blood transfusion, needle pricks and use of contaminated instruments are responsible for transmission of virus. The present study was designed to find out the frequency of HCV positivity in anti HCV negative blood donors by Nucleic acid testing (NAT), to detect those cases of HCV which are in their window period and are not identified by routine serological screening. It will be rather appropriate to combine NAT&ELISA screening of blood donors. Methods: It was a cross sectional study. One thousand healthy, volunteer blood donors with negative anti-HCV status on screening were reconfirmed to be anti-HCV negative by third generation ELISA. NAT testing of these anti-HCV negative donors was done by RT – PCR. In order to economize the cost, RT – PCR was done on 5 samples mini-pool. Results: Donors had a mean age 29.0 ± 5.8 years with male predominance (99.8%). On PCR testing initially 4 pools were found to be reactive for HCV, these pools were segregated and PCR testing of the individual sample of the reactive pools revealed two HCV positive samples in one pool and one HCV positive sample in each of the other three. Thus 5 donors (0.5%) who were screened to be anti-HCV negative, were found to have HCV – RNA on RT – PCR. Conclusion: NAT screening of blood donations reduces the transmission risk of HCV which results in greater safety of blood components. Mini-pooling may be used to substantially reduce the cost of NAT without affecting the sensitivity.