Abstract
Background: Blood products play a very important role in treating numerous life-threatening conditions, but contain inherent possibility of acquiring blood transmitted diseases, including HIV, syphilis, HBV, and HCV. Over 1.5 million blood transfusions are performed in Pakistan every year by different categories of blood donors including, volunteer, replacement, and familial donors.
Objective: To access the prevalence of transfusion-transmitted infections (TTIs) among blood different type of blood donors.
Methodology: A cross-sectional research was carried out at the Al-Khidmat Foundation in Lahore, Pakistan, spanning from January 2021 to April 2022. During this period, blood donors underwent screening for HCV, HIV, HBV, malaria and syphilis.
Results: Total 2,236 of donors were included in current study, 85.6% of total were family donors, while 11.3% were voluntary donors, and replacement donors were about 3.1%. Total 1.6% of donors were female, with the remaining 98.4% blood donors were males. The predominant blood group among donors was B followed by blood group O, A and AB with 37.4%, 30.5%, 23.3%, and 8.8 percent respectively. Rh positive was 91.7%, while Rh negative was 8.3% among all the donors. The largest proportion of donors (69.3%) fell within the 18-30 age groups. A total of 3.3% of donors tested positive for transfusion-transmissible infections (TTIs), with HCV being the highest (1.3%) prevalent followed by syphilis (1.0%), Hepatitis B Virus (0.6%), and Human Immuno Virus (0.4%). No instances of malaria were recorded. Notably, the main occurrence of TTIs was observed among family donors.
Conclusion: Men donate blood more frequently as compared to females. The most frequently encountered type of donor is family donor, followed by volunteers and replacement donors. In terms of transfusion-transmitted infections (TTIs), family donors have a higher prevalence compared to voluntary and replacement donors. The most frequent blood groups type was blood group B followed by O, A, and AB, in that order.