hepatitis b virus dna is absent in lebanese blood donors who are positive for both anti-hbc and anti-hbs antibodies

Background: a major risk during blood transfusion is the transmission of infectious agents such as hepatitis b virus (hbv). screening for anti-hbc antibodies has long been used to test hbv infection and thus, blood safety. however, the development of advanced tools enabling hbv-dna detection rendered the diagnostic benefit of anti-hbc test uncertain. objectives: in this study, we aimed to evaluate the relationship between hbv-dna, anti-hbs, and anti-hbc loads. methods: sera of 7200 blood donors were first screened for hbs antigen (hbsag) and anti-hbc antibody. samples that were found to be hbsag-negative but anti-hbc-positive were further tested for anti-hbs and hbv-dna. results: of the 7200 tested samples, 7143 (99.2%) were hbsag-negative, while the remaining 57 (0.8%) samples were hbsag-positive. among the hbsag-negative samples, 490 (6.8%) were anti-hbc-positive. of the anti-hbc positive samples, 397 (81%) were anti-hbspositive, while the remaining 93 (19%) samples were anti-hbs-negative. interestingly, all of the anti-hbc positive samples, which also were positive for anti-hbs, exhibited negative hbv-dna results. on the other hand, the anti-hbc positive samples, which were negative for anti-hbs, showed both negative and positive hbv-dna results. conclusions: blood samples which are positive for both anti-hbc and anti-hbs are characterized by negative hbv load.