الفهرس 
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Abstract
Blood transfusion remains an important vehicle for transmission of infectious pathogens, particularly hepatitis B, hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency viruses. This retrospective study was conducted to evaluate the seroprevalence and the possible risk factors of HBV, HCV, HIV, and Treponema palladium among 11, 578 blood donors who reported to Sohag regional blood transfusion center during the period from 1/7/2008 to 30/6/2009.
Regulations in our blood bank require interviewing the donors using structured questionnaire and the donors were selected according to The Egyptian National Donors Selection Criteria.
All the donors were screened thoroughly based on the history, physical and hematological examinations before donating blood.
Each donor’s serum sample was examined for blood group , hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), anti-HCV, anti-HIV, and anti-Treponema pallidum antibodies.
Males constituted 78.3% of the studied group and 73.4% of this group lived in urban areas. The ages of the participants ranged from 18 to 60 years with a mean age of 29.3 ±7.2 years. As regards occupation, students represented the highest percentage of the studied group (30.7%).
The highest percentage of the donors were of blood group O Rhesus positive (34.1%) followed by A positive (29.3%), and B positive (20.0%) Other blood groups had much lower percentages.
The overall seroprevalence of HBV, HCV, HIV, and syphilis among blood donors were 1.9%, 3.1%, 0%, and 0.03%, respectively.
HBV and HCV prevalence was highest among males (80% and 78.6%)
In urban areas (73.8% and 74.7%) , in the age group 20-29(44.95% and 48%) , among students (30.7% and 28.6%) and in blood group O+(33.9% and 34.2%) respectively.
The prevalence of HBsAg and Anti-HCV positive donors was not significantly different according to age, gender or other different variables.
The rates were lower than previous studies in Egypt, perhaps due to predonation screening which excludes those known to be at high risk of contracting blood borne infections or who had other contraindications to blood donation.
Conclusion
HBV and HCV were the most prevalent infections amongst blood donors in Sohag governorate. The rates were lower than previous studies in Egypt, perhaps due to predonation screening which excludes those known to be at high risk of contracting blood borne infections or who had other contraindications to blood donation. The prevalence of HBV and HCV was not significantly different according to age, gender, residence or occupation amongst blood donors and so further studies with a larger number of participants are needed to evaluate the possible risk factors and compare the infection rates over years to analyze the magnitude of the problem.
Recommendations
- We need to improve public awareness programs to lower the incidence of hepatitis B and C infections in the general population and consequently first time blood donors. Special intervention programs should be planned to raise awareness of the general public about the highly infectious nature of HCV and its mode of transmission. Continued education of the public and healthcare professionals might prove useful to decrease the seroprevalence.
-Many campaigns also need to be carried out in order to sensitise the population about the importance of blood donation, especially volunteer donation instead of replacement donation, as volunteer donations are safer than replacement ones.
- Non remunerated and repeat voluntary blood donor services are needed there should be an establishment of a nationally coordinated blood transfusion services. Blood transfusion service (BTS) must be an integral and indispensable part of the healthcare system, The priority objective of BTS is to ensure safety, adequacy, accessibility and efficiency of blood supply at all levels (The national policy for blood transfusion services in our country is of recent origin and the transfusion services are hospital based and fragmented).
- Screening of donated blood for at least the four major transfusion-transmissible infections (TTI) with quality-assured assays, rational use of blood and implementation of effective quality control systems. Selection of blood donors with low TTI risk followed by effective laboratory screening is the critical part of the process.
- Setting national strategy for following and caring HCV and HBV infected person diagnosed at blood donation to protect the community from infection and protect them from complications.
- Further studies are recommended among other blood donors and among different population groups in order to know the real prevalence and to study the epidemiology of both diseases.