The Australia Antigen: Where Do We Stand?

Abstract

Testing for hepatitis-associated antigen is now standard blood bank procedure, but even though HAA-positive blood is excluded from transfusion, we cannot expect posttransfusion hepatitis to disappear. Some cases apparently are due to other causes, and present test methods do not identify every icterogenic unit of blood or blood fractions. At present HAA testing is used mainly to screen donor blood and differentiate the types of hepatitis, but large-scale population screening ancf surveillance of high-risk groups are future possibilities.