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Prevalence of hepatitis G virus in Queensland blood donors
Author(s) -
Moaven Len D,
Bowden D Scott,
McCaw Rhonda,
Locarnini Stephen A,
Hyland Catherine A,
Young Ian F,
Mison Leigh
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.1996.tb125019.x
Subject(s) - medicine , hepatitis c virus , blood donor , reverse transcriptase , rna , blood bank , virology , polymerase chain reaction , reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction , retrospective cohort study , virus , immunology , biology , gene , messenger rna , emergency medicine , biochemistry
Objective To determine the prevalence of hepatitis G virus (HGV) carriage in Queensland blood donors. Design Cross‐sectional survey with retrospective longitudinal study of HGV‐positive donors. Setting Brisbane Red Cross Blood Bank, 1995. Subjects 100 consecutive blood donors attending the Blood Bank on two days in October 1995 and 20 blood donors with a raised plasma alanine aminotransferase (ALT) level on their last donation. Outcome measures Presence of HGV RNA by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) in currently donated blood and in blood samples archived for up to 34 months. RT‐PCR used two different reverse transcription methods and three different specific sets of primers and probes. Results Five of the 120 blood donors were positive for HGV RNA by all RT‐PCR methods (four of the 100 with normal ALT levels [4%] and one of the 20 with raised ALT levels [5%]). Retrospective testing of archived samples showed that four of these five had been persistently HGV RNA‐positive for at least two years, while the fifth had been HGV RNA‐negative on two donations before becoming HGV RNA‐positive. No risk factors were identified for this donor. Conclusions A relatively large number of Queensland blood donors (4%) are persistently HGV RNA‐positive.