title: Frequency of West Nile Virus Infection in Iranian Blood Donors.
abstract: West Nile virus (WNV) can be transmitted by blood transfusions and organ transplants. This study was a retrospective study which was performed in Blood Transfusion Center to evaluate the WNV infection in blood donors in Iran. A total of 540 blood samples were taken from volunteer healthy donors who referred for blood donation to Chabahar Blood Center. The presence of WNV was studied by detecting immunoglobulin G (IgG) WNV by enzyme linked immune sorbent assay (ELISA). Demonstration of elevated WNV IgG confirmed by immunoflouorescence assay (IFA) Euroimmun kit. Out of the 540 samples 17.96 % (97 cases) were seropositive by ELISA and 1.48 % (8 cases) was seropositive by IFA. This means that 8.24 % of ELISA seropositive samples were confirmed by IFA. Special attention should be paid to criteria of donor selection, albeit positive results may be due to a previous infection in these donors.
authors.affiliation: Blood Transfusion Research Center, High Institute for Research and Education in Transfusion Medicine, P.O. Box 14665-1157, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Afsaneh
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Aghaie
authors.affiliation: Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Aaskov
authors.affiliation: Arboviruses and VHFs Lab, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Sadegh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chinikar
authors.affiliation: Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Niedrig
authors.affiliation: Quality Assurance, Iranian Blood Research and Fractionation Holding Company, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Soudabeh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Banazadeh
authors.affiliation: Research Center, Iranian Blood Research and Fractionation Holding Company, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Hashem Khorsand
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: Mohammadpour
keywords: Blood donor; Donor selection; Enzyme linked immune sorbent assay (ELISA); Epidemiology; Immunoflouorescence assay (IFA); Iran; West Nile virus (WNV)