Prevalence of HIV among blood donors in a tertiary care centre of north India.
OBJECTIVE
India has the second highest HIV population in the world with about 2.5-3.0 million cases. HIV-2 cases among general and blood donor population have also been reported mostly from west and south India. This single centre study was carried out to observe the HIV-1 and HIV-2 prevalence among blood donors from north India.


METHODS
A total of 2,04,677 people were screened for the presence of HIV infection over the 11 year period (1999 to 2009). Till 2004, a third generation ELISA kit was used. From 2005 till January 2009 all tests were done using the fourth generation ELISA kit which detected the presence of HIV-1 P24 antigen and anti-HIV antibodies. From February 2009 onwards, the kits used were Genscreen ULTRA HIV Ag-Ab Assay.


RESULTS
A total of 506 (0.247%) donors were found to be repeat reactive for HIV. Of these, 486 (96%) donors tested using the Western blot were found positive for HIV-1 infection. Twenty (4%) donors showed a negative Western blot result, none of the donors were found reactive for HIV-2 infection.


CONCLUSIONS
The prevalence of HIV was 0.249 per cent among blood donors of north India. No HIV-2 case was found among the studied blood donor population indicating that it is not a threat currently.
Department of Transfusion Medicine, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, Sarita Vihar, Mathura Road, New Delhi, India. makroo@apollohospitals.com
R N
RN
Makroo
Mohit
M
Chowdhry
Aakanksha
A
Bhatia
Bhavna
B
Arora
N L
NL
Rosamma
D000328:Adult; D015153:Blotting, Western; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000097:blood / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015497:HIV-1; D015498:HIV-2; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016036:Seroepidemiologic Studies