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Rapid, Safe, and Simple Manual Bedside Nucleic Acid Extraction for the Detection of Virus in Whole Blood Samples
Published on: June 30, 2018
Automated nucleic acid amplification testing in blood banks: An additional layer of blood safety
Pragati Chigurupati1, K Srinivasa Murthy2
1Department of Microbiology, GSL Medical College, Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Context:
A total of 30 million blood components are transfused each year in India. Blood safety thus becomes a top priority, especially with a population of around 1.23 billion and a high prevalence rate of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) in general population. Nucleic acid amplification testing (NAT) in blood donor screening has been implemented in many developed countries to reduce the risk of transfusion-transmitted viral infections (TTIs). NAT takes care of the dynamics of window period of viruses and offers the safest blood pack for donation.
Aims:
The aim of this study is to show the value of NAT in blood screening.
Settings And Design:
Dhanavantari Blood Bank, Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Subjects And Methods:
Over a period of 1 year from January 2012 to December 2012, a total number of 15,000 blood donor samples were subjected to tests for HIV, HBV, and HCV by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method and 8000 ELISA nonreactive samples were subjected for NAT using multiplex polymerase chain reaction technology.
Results:
Of the 15,000 donors tested, 525 were seroreactive. In 8000 ELISA negative blood samples subjected to NAT, 4 donor samples were reactive for HBV. The NAT yield was 1 in 2000.
Conclusions:
NAT could detect HIV, HBV, and HCV cases in blood donor samples those were undetected by serological tests. NAT could interdict 2500 infectious donations among our approximate 5 million annual blood donations.
