title: Hepatitis C viraemia in United Kingdom blood donors. A multicentre study.
abstract: Of 10,633 blood donations tested in three regional blood transfusion centres with two commercial first generation screening assays for antibodies to the hepatitis C virus (HCV), 65 (0.61%) were found to be repeatedly reactive in one or both assays. Five of the 65 were confirmed positive by recombinant immunoblot assay (Ortho RIBA-2) and a further 4 were judged indeterminate. All 5 RIBA-2 positive donations and 1 of the 4 RIBA-2 indeterminates were shown to be viraemic by HCV-RNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays performed at three independent reference laboratories. The remaining 56 screen test reactive donations proved negative by RIBA-2 and, with 1 exception, negative by PCR. We conclude that while first generation anti-HCV screening assays generate a high proportion of false reactions when screening low prevalence populations, results of the RIBA-2 confirmatory test correlate well with PCR findings and thus indirectly with both hepatitis C viraemia and infectivity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Microbiology, University College and Middlesex School of Medicine, London, UK.
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Garson
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Clewley
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Simmonds
authors.forename: L Q
authors.initials: LQ
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mori
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ring
authors.forename: E A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Follett
authors.forename: B C
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Dow
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gunson
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D001782:Blood Donors; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D016174:Hepacivirus / Q000276:immunology / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006508:Hepatitis Antibodies / Q000032:analysis*; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000097:blood / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D015151:Immunoblotting; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D015995:Prevalence; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology; D014766:Viremia / Q000097:blood / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology / Q000382:microbiology
chemical_list: D006508:Hepatitis Antibodies; D012367:RNA, Viral