Hepatitis C Antibodies among Blood Donors, Senegal, 2001

摘要

To the Editor: Prevalence ofchronic hepatitis C virus (HCV)among blood donors has beenassessed in a few West African coun-tries; most recent estimates rangefrom 1.1% to 6.7% (1–4). A recentmeta-analysis of studies, including aconfirmation test, yielded an averageprevalence of HCV infection of 3.0%(5). Until 2001, no systematic screen-ing of HCV infection occurred amongblood donors in Senegal, and blooddonation legislation is still pending.We report an assessment of the pro-portion of blood donors from theH.pital Principal de Dakar who hadHCV antibodies in 2001. Blood donors were all volunteers,recruited independently from the hos-pitalized patients and registered in alocal donors association. We screenedfor risk factors for bloodborne infec-tions in potential donors through aclinical examination and a confiden-tial questionnaire. Persons with a his-tory of jaundice or a risk behaviorwere excluded. Serum samples col-lected from blood donors from June toDecember 2001 were screened forHCV antibodies by a third-generationenzyme immunoassay (EIA) (HCVMurex 4.0; Abbott Laboratories,Abbott, IL). Confirmation was per-formed by a recombinant-immunoblotassay (INNO-LIA HCV Ab III update;[Innogenetics, Gent, Belgium]). HCVRNA was detected by a qualitativereverse transcription–polymerasechain reaction (Roche Amplicor HCVtest [Hoffman-LaRoche, Basel,Switzerland]). Genotype was deter-mined by the INNO-LiPA HCV IIassay (Innogenetics). Presence of hep-atitis B surface antigen (HbsAg) andalanine-aminotransferase (ALAT)level are routinely assessed, as well asHIV and human T-lymphotropic virustype l infection