title: Frequency of HIV type 2 infections among blood donor population from India: a 10-year experience.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  In India, HIV-2 epidemic is alongside with HIV-1. Blood banks are introducing nucleic acid testing (NAT) for screening. The limitation of NAT systems is the inability to detect HIV-2.
  
  
  METHODS
  An analysis of HIV screening of a blood bank at a tertiary care center from 1998 to 2007 was carried out.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 175026 donors were screened by serological assays and 789 were reactive for HIV antibody. Only 478 (61%) were confirmed positive by Western blot/immunoblot. There were 465 (97.2%) donations positive for HIV-1, 6 (1.3%) for HIV-2 (monotypic infection) and 7 (1.5%) for HIV-1 and HIV-2 (dual infection).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We show the presence of HIV-2 infection among the blood donors and the need for incorporating HIV-2 detection also in the NAT systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunohaematology and Transfusion Medicine, Christian Medical College, Vellore - 632 004, India.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kannangai
authors.forename: S C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Nair
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sridharan
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Prasannakumar
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Daniel
mesh_terms: D001782:Blood Donors; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology*; D015498:HIV-2 / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D015151:Immunoblotting; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D016036:Seroepidemiologic Studies