frequency of viral transfusion-transmitted infections (ttis) among resident and pilgrim blood donors in mashhad, 2011

Background: mashhad is a large pilgrimage city with over 20 million pilgrims and tourists annually. some pilgrims donate their blood voluntarily during the pilgrimage. objectives: the present study aimed to compare the prevalence of viral transfusion-transmitted infections (ttis) between resident and pilgrim blood donors in mashhad. methods: we reviewed the records of all blood donors in mashhad blood centers in 2011. the demographic data and the prevalence of ttis, including hbv, hcv, hiv, and htlv-1, were compared between 42821 donors from mashhad and 15219 donors from other cities of iran. the data were analyzed using microsoft excel 2010 and epi-info 6.0 software. results: the mean age of residents and pilgrims was 34.6 ± 9.9 and 34.2 ± 10 years, respectively. the male to female ratio in the first group was higher than that in the second group (13.1 and 6.6, respectively). one-third of the residents and nearly two-thirds of the pilgrims were first-time blood donors. the most prevalent ttis among the residents were htlv-1 (0.39%) and hbv (0.33%); however, the frequencies of these infections were 0.24% and 0.57% among the pilgrims, respectively. the seroprevalence of hcv infection was 0.054% and 0.072% in the first and second groups, respectively. the hiv infection was observed only in one donor from mashhad. conclusions: a low prevalence of ttis, particularly hcv and hiv infections, was found among blood donors from all parts of iran. a higher prevalence of htlv-1 infection among mashhad donor population than among donors from other parts of iran verified the virus endemicity in this region.