Prevalence of hepatitis B infection in professional and family/voluntary blood donors.

Sir, Hepatitis B infection is a major blood transmittable infection in the country’. To know the prevalence of hepatitis B infection in professional and family/voluntary blood donors, we screened 103 professional blood donors and 2,573 family/voluntary blood donors for RBsAg with Auszyme kit (Abbott Laboratories). Ten professional blood donors and 134 family/voluntary blood donors were HBsAg positive. A 10% prevalence of hepatitis B infection in professional blood donors and 5% in family/voluntary donors is alarming and stresses the need for elimination of paid donors from blood donation, mandatory screening of every unit of blood and appropriate use of blood and its product2,3.