Abstract

Background: Transmission of infectious diseases such as HIV, hepatitis, syphilis, and others through donated blood needs a serious monitoring to provide safe blood for transfusion, which forms an integral part of medical and surgical therapy.
Objective: To access the seroprevalence of transfusion-transmitted infections (TTIs) in Malwa region and assess the level of blood safety. Material and Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted for the duration of 12 months. The known seropositive donors for any of these infections (HIV, HBV, HCV, syphilis, and malaria) and hemoglobin less than 12.5 g% were excluded. All donor samples were screened for HIV, HBsAg, and anti-HCV by ELISA methods; syphilis and malaria screening was done by card test. Result: Among the total 4,007 donors, 92% were replacement donors while 8% were voluntary donors. Female donors comprised only 1.62%; the remaining 98.38% were male donors. The donor population was mostly in the young age group of 18–30 years (69.1%). Totally, 2.05% (n = 83) blood bags were seropositive for TTI. HBV was the most common TTI (1.77% bags); HIV was the second most common TTI (0.14% bags); HCV was detected in 0.099% bags, whereas syphilis was the least common TTI (0.04% bags). Conclusion: Two to 3% of healthy donors are seropositive for TTI and reveal potential of transmitting them through trans- fusion. Thus, strict and proper donor selection criteria and screening with higher-generation ELISA kits can help to identify and avoid transfusion of infectious blood products.