Establishment of the Ph. Eur. Hepatitis A virus RNA for NAT testing BRP batch 1

Detection of viral contamination in plasma donations is critical to prevent transmission of infectious diseases. The European Pharmacopoeia (Ph. Eur.) monograph 1646 'Human plasma (pooled and treated for virus inactivation)', requires that plasma pools used for the manufacture of this product be tested, among others, for the presence of hepatitis A virus RNA by nucleic acid testing (NAT) using a positive control containing 100 International Units (IU) of hepatitis A virus (HAV) RNA per mL. To this end, the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM, Council of Europe) organised an international collaborative study under the aegis of the Biological Standardisation Programme, for the establishment of the 1^st Biological Reference Preparation (BRP) for HAV RNA for NAT testing. A freeze-dried candidate material was thus prepared and calibrated against the WHO 2^nd International Standard for HAV for NAT (00/562) in a study in which thirteen European and North American laboratories including Official Medicines Control Laboratories (OMCLs), manufacturers of plasma-derived products, producers of in vitro diagnostic kits and a blood transfusion centre participated. Based on the outcome of the study, an HAV RNA content of 40 000 IU/vial (corresponding approximately to 4.6 log₁₀ IU/vial) was assigned to the BRP, which was adopted by the Ph. Eur. Commission in March 2016 as Ph. Eur. hepatitis A virus RNA for NAT testing BRP batch 1.