Background: The significance of blood transfusion is best captured by the phrase, "It's not just blood-it's liquid life." However, without proper safety measures, transfusion carries serious risks, including the transmission of highly infectious diseases. Among these, hepatitis B virus infection poses a major public health threat due to its high infectivity, potential for chronic infection, and severe complications. Despite the availability of an effective vaccine, hepatitis B virus remains a persistent challenge in transfusion medicine, underscoring the need for stringent screening and preventive strategies. This study aimed to determine the trend of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) seropositivity among the blood donor population over five years and its prevalence among voluntary and replacement donors.
Methods: This study was conducted at a licensed blood center of a tertiary care hospital. A retrospective review of blood donor data over five years was extracted. All donated blood was screened for the presence of HBsAg using commercially available ELISA kits. All repeatedly reactive samples were labelled seropositive. The data were analyzed for trends in the prevalence of HBsAg over the study period.
Results: A total of 18,139 healthy donors were screened during the study period. Among them, 11,517 were replacement donors and 6,622 were voluntary donors. The overall prevalence of HBsAg seropositivity was 0.66%, which was higher in replacement blood donors (0.46%). A decline in the incidence of HBsAg among donors was also observed over the five-year study duration.
Conclusion: Promoting and encouraging voluntary blood donation is a simple and effective way to reduce the prevalence of all transfusion-transmitted infections.
