Incidence of post‐transfusion hepatitis in Taiwan before and after introduction of anti‐HCV testing

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Abstract
The effectiveness of second‐generation anti‐hepatitis C virus antibody (anti‐HCV) screening of blood donations for the prevention of non‐A, non‐B post‐transfusion hepatitis (NANB PTH) was assessed. A prospective study of 192 transfusion recipients was performed to compare the incidence of NANB PTH after the introduction of the second‐generation anti‐HCV test with the incidence before its introduction. We used a polymerase chain reaction to detect HCV‐RNA and HBV‐DNA in the sera of patients with NANB PTH. The incidence of acute post‐transfusion hepatitis C was 11% (8 of 71) before the screening for anti‐HCV as compared with 2.5% (3 of 121) after the screening (p<0.05). Viremia was detected within the first five weeks of infection in 10 patients with acute post‐transfusion hepatitis C. However, there was no significant difference in the incidence of non‐A, non‐B, non‐C (NANBNC) PTH before screening (3 of 71, 4.2%) compared with after screening (3 of 121, 2.5%). Usually, NANBNC PTH was not clinically important. Anti‐HCV screening of blood donors significantly reduces the incidence of post‐transfusion hepatitis C, but not the incidence of NANBNC PTH.