AIMS: This study was undertaken to establish the prevalence of VVR among whole blood donors in Hospital Pulau Pinang and to investigate factors that lead to its occurrence.
SETTINGS AND DESIGN: A cross-sectional study was conducted involving 27,890 whole blood donations in 2016.
SUBJECTS AND METHODS: For each donation, donor's demographic and blood donation-related information was extracted from the blood bank database.
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Qualitative data including age group, sex, race, frequency, and location of donation were analyzed using Chi-square tests, while blood pressure was analyzed using t-test.
RESULTS: Overall, 425 cases of VVRs were reported, resulting in a VVR rate of 1.5% (one event in every 65 donations). We found a statistically significant association (P < 0.05) between the occurrence of VVRs with the young age group, female gender, Indian race, first-time donor, lower predonation blood pressure, and donation performed in a mobile donation campaign. The most common vasovagal symptoms are lightheadedness (88%), followed by nausea (5.4%), muscle twitching (3.5%), vomiting (1.4%), loss of consciousness <30 s (1.4%), and paresthesia (0.2%).
CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of VVRs among whole blood donors in Hospital Pulau Pinang appeared to be low. Our study reaffirms that blood donation is a relatively safe process, and the incidence of VVR can be further reduced by ensuring strict screening procedure before blood donation.
OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to detect occult hepatitis B virus in hepatitis B surface antigen-negative serum using anti-HBc as a marker of previous infection.
PATIENT AND METHODS: A total of 1000 randomly selected hepatitis B surface antigen-negative sera from blood donors were tested for hepatitis B core antibody and hepatitis B surface antibody using an ELISA and nested polymerase chain reaction was done using primers specific to the surface gene (S-gene).
RESULTS: Of the 1000 samples 55 (5.5%) were found to be reactive, of which 87.3% (48/55) were positive for hepatitis B surface antibody, indicating immunity as a result of previous infection however, that does not exclude active infection with escaped mutant HBV. Nested PCR results showed the presence of hepatitis B viral DNA in all the 55 samples that were positive for core protein, which is in agreement with the hepatitis B surface antibody result.
CONCLUSION: This study reveals the 5.5% prevalence of occult hepatitis B among Malaysian blood donors as well as the reliability of using hepatitis B core antibody in screening for occult hepatitis B infection in low endemic, low socioeconomic settings.