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High Prevalence of HBV Infectivity in Blood Donors Detected by the Dot Blot Hybridisation Assay
Author(s) -
Nagaraju K.,
Misra S.,
Saraswat S.,
Choudhary N.,
Masih B.,
Ramesh V.,
Naik S.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
vox sanguinis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.68
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1423-0410
pISSN - 0042-9007
DOI - 10.1111/j.1423-0410.1994.tb01656.x
Subject(s) - hbsag , infectivity , virology , dot blot , population , hepatitis b virus , hepatitis b , antibody , antigen , medicine , microbiology and biotechnology , immunology , biology , dna , virus , genetics , environmental health
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) continues to be a significant cause for post‐transfusion hepatitis in India, in spite of the introduction of compulsory hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) screening. To understand the true HBV‐infective pool in the blood donor population, HBV DNA was detected by a 32 P‐labelled dot blot hybridisation assay in 605 donor units that were negative for HBsAg by a third‐generation Elisa. Serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) was estimated in all these samples and correlated with DNA positivity. The frequency of HBV DNA positivity in HBsAg‐negative units was very high (9.91%) and correlated well with the elevation in ALT (p<0.00005). However, the frequency of elevated ALT was high (11.9%), using the locally determined upper limit of normal, and half of the DNA‐positive samples had a normal ALT. Thus, ALT is a poor surrogate marker for HBV infectivity and efforts should be made to apply DNA detection systems in blood banks.