HIV antibody screening of blood donations in the United Kingdom

Routine screening of blood donations for anti-HIV commenced in the UK during October 1985 and by the end of February 1987 approximately 3.7 million donations had been tested. Seventy-two were confirmed anti-HIV positive, i.e. 0.002%. Of the anti-HIV-positive donors interviewed to date, the majority are young homosexual or bisexual men or intravenous drug abusers. Included in the study are data collected on approximately 470,000 donors giving blood for the first time. Twenty of these have been confirmed anti-HIV positive (0.004%), and 19 interviewed have admitted to being in risk categories. In 5 instances a positive anti-HIV donor was found negative on a previous occasion, and in 1 instance the products from the donation led to seroconversion in the recipients. The majority of anti-HIV-positive donors attending for blood donation did so because they did not consider that the self-exclusion categories specified in the leaflet issued to donors applied to them since homosexual activity or drug abuse was not currently being practised.