Transfusion Transmitted Infections among Blood Donors at a Tertiary Health Facility in Southwest, Nigeria

Abstract

It was a major breakthrough for human medicine when Landsteiner discovered the ABO blood group system. But with the discovery of ABO and Rhesus systems, this major hindrance to safe blood transfusion- and by extension surgery- was effectively put behind humanity. Centuries after this, humanity is faced another kind of challenge to safe blood transfusion- transfusion transmitted infections (TTIs), particularly in developing nations of the world. Though lots of infections are transmissible through transfusion, the focus of this study was HIV, HBV, HCV and syphilis. This study aimed at determining the prevalence of these TTIs (HIV, HBV, HCV and syphilis) among intending blood donors at a tertiary health facility in Ekiti State, southwest, Nigeria. The data of 150 intending blood donors at the said tertiary health facility were retrospectively retrieved and analysed. One hundred and twenty (80%) of the subjects were males, while 30 (20%) were females. The age of the subjects ranged between 18 and 55 years. Thirty-four (22.7%) of the subjects had TTIs, while 116 (77.3%) were negative to all the TTIs of interest for this study (HIV, HBV, HCV and Syphilis). Out of the 34 subjects who had TTIs, 2 (1.3%) tested positive for HIV, 18 (12%) for HBV; 10 (6.7%) for HCV and 4 (2.7%) for syphilis. Twenty-nine (85.3%) of the subjects who had TTIs were males, while 5 (14.7%) were females. An overall TTI sero-prevalence of 2.7% is rather on the high side and should serve as a wake-up call to all concerned authorities in the State to design enlightenment programme that will reduce the sero-prevalence of TTIs.