Hepatitis C viraemia in United Kingdom blood donors: a multicentre study

Garson, Jeremy A., Clewley, J. P., Simmonds, P., Zhang, L. Q., Mori, J., Ring, Christopher J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9278-0942, Follett, E. A., Dow, B. C., Martin, S. and Gunson, H. (1992) Hepatitis C viraemia in United Kingdom blood donors: a multicentre study. Vox Sanguinis, 62 (4) . pp. 218-223. ISSN 0042-9007 [Article] (doi:10.1111/j.1423-0410.1992.tb01202.x)

Abstract

Of 10,633 blood donations tested in three regional blood transfusion centres with two commercial first generation screening assays for antibodies to the hepatitis C virus (HCV), 65 (0.61%) were found to be repeatedly reactive in one or both assays. Five of the 65 were confirmed positive by recombinant immunoblot assay (Ortho RIBA-2) and a further 4 were judged indeterminate. All 5 RIBA-2 positive donations and 1 of the 4 RIBA-2 indeterminates were shown to be viraemic by HCV-RNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays performed at three independent reference laboratories. The remaining 56 screen test reactive donations proved negative by RIBA-2 and, with 1 exception, negative by PCR. We conclude that while first generation anti-HCV screening assays generate a high proportion of false reactions when screening low prevalence populations, results of the RIBA-2 confirmatory test correlate well with PCR findings and thus indirectly with both hepatitis C viraemia and infectivity.

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