Frequency of HIV type 2 infections among blood donor population from India: a 10-year experience.
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.
Kannangai
R
R
Department of Immunohaematology and Transfusion Medicine, Christian Medical College, Vellore - 632 004, India.
Nair
S C
SC
Sridharan
G
G
Prasannakumar
S
S
Daniel
D
D
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