Prevalence of Hepatitis B Surface Antigen and Hepatitis C Virus Antibody and Their Risk Factors among Guilan's Volunteer Blood Donors (1998-2003)

Background and aims: millions of lives are saved each year through blood transfusion. although blood is a life-savingelement, it can occasionally cause some severe diseases. this study was performed to assess the prevalence of hepatitisband c virus infections and their known risk factors among guilan's volunteer blood donors from 1998 till 2003.methods: the study population consisted of 221,508 blood donors referring to the blood transfusion organization,guilan, iran. enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (elisa) was performed for hepatitis b surface antigen (hbsag) andhepatitis c virus antibody (hcy-ab) detection. positive cases were confirmed by neutralization and recombinantimmunoblot assay (riba), respectively. known risk factors including histories of surgery, icterus, blood transfusion,endoscopy, unsafe sexual contact, etc. were extracted from available files and evaluated.results: 997 individuals were positive for hbsag and 3,603 individuals for hcy-ab. after confirmation tests, theprevalence of hbsag and hcy-ab was 0.45% and 1.62%, respectively. the most common risk factors were history ofsurgery followed by icterus in cases or their family.conclusions: the prevalence of hbsag and hcy-ab is less than that of normal population due to careful screeningcarried out by staff of blood transfusion organization. regarding the high frequency of surgery history in positive cases,attending to hospital and operation room hygiene seems to be very important