Incidence of False Sero-Negative Blood Donor Cases for Hepatitis-C In Public And Private Hospitals Of City District Faisalabad

Abstract

Background: Hepatitis C is a worldwide public health problem nowadays^. World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 3 percent of the world population is infected with HCV. Voluntary blood donors have a very high   prevalence of HCV infection especially in the developing world^. The blood and   blood components can be obtained from volunteer donors, direct donors, paid donors, or through autologous donation^, hence the donors should be carefully interviewed and tested before blood donation. Objectives: To assess the incidence of false sero-negative Hepatitis-C blood donors and evaluate the costs, benefits and effectiveness of specific Tests of Hepatitis-C in public and private hospitals of city district, Faisalabad. Study Design: It was a cross-sectional hospital based study. Setting and Duration: The study was conducted in 3 public sector and 3 Private sector Hospitals of City district of Faisalabad. The study was conducted for one Year during 2010-2011 Sampling procedure: Non-probability Convenient sampling technique was employed.  Sample size: The study included 600 blood donors who deposited their blood in the blood banks of the above hospitals for transfusion purposes.  Results: The majority of the blood donors 70.83% were between the age of18-25 years. Despite the fact that all the donors, in government and private hospitals groups respectively were found initially negative for hepatitis C on routine diagnostic test, yet considerable number of individuals, 14 (4.60%) and 46 (15.33%) in government and private hospitals groups, respectively were found unexpectedly positive for hepatitis C when scrutinized on ELISA diagnostic test. The results were found to be statistically significant when the P value was less than 0.05 (P<0.05). Conclusion: All the individuals irrespective of their group were screened to be sero-negative for hepatitis –C, when tested on the routine laboratory test. But when their blood serum was tested by ELISA method, a sizeable number of individuals in both government and private hospital groups were screened as sero-positive for HCV. This state of uncertain performance of the routine laboratory test has given rise to unreliability of the diagnosis of hepatitis C by the routine test. It is, therefore, strongly recommended that only ELISA method should be ordered for authentic diagnosis of hepatitis C.