Updated Seroprevalence of Hepatitis B Surface Antigen and Anti-Hepatitis Core Antibody Among Blood Donors in Yemen

Abstract

Purpose

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is one of the most common infectious pathogens worldwide. Various studies found a prevalence of HBV infection among blood donors ranging from 2% to 18%. Hence, this study aimed to provide an updated prevalence of HBsAg and anti-HBcAb among blood donors.

Patients and Methods

This was a cross-sectional study to investigate the donation records of blood donors in Sana’a, Yemen, over one year (January to December 2019). Eligible blood donors were included in the study. The serum samples of blood donors were tested for HBsAg and anti-HBcAb (IgG & IgM) using the electrochemiluminescence (ECL) and enzyme immunoassay (EIA) techniques.

Results

A total of 16,367 blood donors were recruited in this study, of whom 14,300 (87.4%) donated only once during this study (single, non-duplicated blood donors), while 2067 (12.6%) were repeated or duplicated. The overall prevalence of HBsAg and anti-HBcAb was 2.4% and 10.8%, respectively. Among single non-duplicated blood donors, HBsAg and Anti-HBcAb were 2.3% and 10.6% and 3.0% and 12.5% for repeated blood donors, respectively. There were statistically significant differences between HBsAg and Anti-HBcAb in terms of donor type and testing techniques.

Conclusion

The seroprevalence of HBsAg and anti-HBcAb among the blood donors was 2.0% and 10.3%, respectively. The ECL technique is more sensitive, has a lower error rate, and shows an advantage over the manual EIA technique. Duplicated blood donors influence the accuracy of the seroprevalence of HBsAg and anti-HBcAb.

Keywords:

• hepatitis infections
• serological markers
• transfusion transmissible infections
• blood transfusion
• Yemen

Acknowledgment

We sincerely appreciate the staff members of the Virology unit and Blood Bank at the National Blood Transfusion and Research Centre in Sana’a, Yemen.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.