Prevalence of HCV in apparently healthy voluntary blood donors

Absatrct: Hepatitis C is a silient murderer that may create no symptoms for decades. The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a chief source of both acute and chronic hepatitis. The transmission of HCV is primarly all the way through exposure to contaminated blood. In this research aim was to find out the prevalence of HCV in apparently healthy voluntary blood donors by using immunochromatographic test and ELISA kits. One hundersed blood samples were screened at “The Medical Laboratories Lahore-Pakistan”. Immunochromatographic test kits were used for qualitative detection of anti-HCV and ELISA for quantitative detection of anti-HCV. ELISA system was found to be quite sensitive in detecting anti-HCV as compared to ICT. On the basis of gender category the prevalence of HCV in males was 10% when screened through ICT while 13.7% were positive via ELISA. In females prevalence of HCV was 5% when samples performed through ICT when these samples were performed through ELISA they were 10% positive. The prevalence of HCV differs by gender which is higher among males than females. Notable increase in prevalence of HCV among donors of age (36-45) years was recorded. Risks for transmission include blood donation. So blood donors should be tested from athentic laboratory before donating the blood.