Optimization of Pooling Technique for Hepatitis C Virus Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) in Blood Banks

摘要

Background: Blood safety is an important health issue, especially in Egypt with a high prevalence of HCV infection and recentmassive efforts for control.Objectives: The study was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of the nucleic acid amplification technique (NAT) in Egyptian bloodbanks.Methods: A total of 12,036 plasma sample donations collected from two Egyptian blood banks were screened by NAT using a chessboardpooling scheme. The donations were divided into two groups: Group 1 included 10,020 seronegative, while Group 2 included2,016 blindly tested donations.Results: Out of the total donations, seven tests were positive by NAT. The serology results of those seven seronegative donationswere confirmed. They were also retested individually by NAT. The pool format 6x12 was the most reliable for screening. The cost ofNAT was reduced to one-quarter and the positive sample in the pool was easily pointed by using the chessboard format.Conclusions: The study demonstrated the importance of introducing NAT for HCV screening in Egyptian blood banks by adoptinga pooling scheme to reduce cost.