Abstract Context: India is the second largest global pool of chronic HBV infection. Despite the institution of mandatory screening for HBsAg, the issue of transfusion-associated HBV is still a major health problem plaguing most third world and resource poor countries. Transfusion medicine, apart from being important for the medical treatment of each patient, also has great public health importance. Objectives: The present study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of Hepatitis B infections in voluntary blood donors at a tertiary care teaching hospital in Mumbai. Materials and Methods: All voluntary donors reporting to the blood bank were screened for HBsAg by using the appropriate enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The study was designed for duration of seven years between January 2008 to December 2014. Medical reports of the donors were accessed from the blood bank records and analyzed. Results: A total of 5606 voluntary blood donors were screened, of which 5120 (91.33%) were males and 486 (8.67%) were females. The seroprevalence of Hepatitis B was 3.67%. Conclusion: Blood borne transmission of hepatitis B virus continues to occur despite implementation of highly sensitive screening tests for HBsAg, suggesting these assays are still not sensitive enough to prevent all infections.
Keywords: Hepatitis B; Blood Donors.