Work

Use of Blood Donor Screening to Monitor Prevalence of HIV and Hepatitis B and C Viruses, South Africa

Year: 2017

Type: article

Abstract: for the NHLBI Recipient Epidemiology and Donor evaluation Study-III (REDS-III) International ComponentAmong 397,640 first-time blood donors screened in South Africa during 2012-2015, HIV prevalence was 1.13%, hepatitis B virus prevalence 0.66%, and hepatitis C virus prevalence 0.03%.Findings of note were a high HIV prevalence in Mpumalanga Province and the near absence of hepatitis C virus nationwide.S outh Africa has one of the largest HIV epidemics in the world.HIV prevalence is 18.8% among those 15-49 years of age, and estimated HIV incidence in sexually active persons is 1.21/100 person-years for men and 2.28/100 person-years for women (1,2).Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is also common; among young adults, hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) prevalence is ≈4%, and universal HBV vaccination of infants was introduced in 1995 (3).Other than in an outdated study that found PCR-positive hepatitis C virus (HCV) in 0.05% of blood donors (4), the prevalence of HCV infection in South Africa is poorly described but is probably lower than in other countries in Africa (5).Recent published data on the prevalence of HIV, HBV, and HCV among blood donors in South Africa are scant (6,7).We assessed prevalence of these viruses by demographic and geographic characteristics to inform donorselection criteria and to aid public health surveillance.

Source: Emerging infectious diseases

DOI: 10.3201/eid2309.161594