Anti-HBc and HBV-DNA detection in blood donors negative for hepatitis B virus surface antigen

Occult HBV infection is defined as the presence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA in blood or liver tissues in patients negative for Hepatitis B surface Antigen (HBsAg). Those patients may or may not be positive for HBV antibodies. The objective of this study is to determine the presence or absence of HBV DNA in the serum samples from HBsAg negative blood donors. In addition we aimed to assess the magnitude of occult HBV infection and to reduce the risk of HBV infection. Over a period of one year a total of 7340 blood units were collected at blood transfusion center in our locality for the prevalence of HBV infection and 180 HBsAg negative blood specimens were randomly selected for anti-HBcIgM, anti-HBs antibody and HBV DNA. Ninety seven out of 7340 collected blood units were positive for HbsAg (1.3%). The randomly selected 180 tested donors revealed 7 (3.8%) positive for antiHBc IgM and 34 (18.8%) were positive for anti-HBs antibodies. Four out of 7 positive for anti-HBc IgM were also positive for anti-HBs and 2/180 (1.1%) specimens were positive for HBV DNA by PCR. Anti-HBc antibody should be tested routinely at any blood transfusion center and if they were positive regardless of anti-HBs titer, the blood should be discarded. Also HBV DNA is preferable to be performed to all blood donors to present completely safe blood transfusion.