Acute Hepatitis B Infection Associated With Blood Transfusion in England and Wales, 1991-7: Review of Database

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Acute Hepatitis B Infection Associated With Blood Transfusion in England and Wales, 1991-7: Review of Database

British Medical Journal Online (01/09/99) Vol. 318, No. 7176, P. 95
Soldan, K.; Ramsay, M.; Collins, M.

While all blood donations in England and Wales have been screened for hepatitis B surface antigen since the 1970s, there is still a low rate of hepatitis B virus (HBV) transmission due to tainted blood transfusions. Researchers from the Public Health Laboratory Service Communicable Disease Surveillance Center in London reviewed transfusion-associated hepatitis B cases between 1991 and 1997. They found that 24 of 4,185 (0.6 percent) cases were associated with transfusion in England and Wales. Investigative reports by the National Blood Services were not feasible or inconclusive for 10 of the cases. For the remaining 14 cases, three were from surface antigen-negative donors during acute HBV infection and 11 were from negative donors during late carriage of the virus. The authors note that the reports underestimate the number of cases due to transmission, but that transmission is still rare due to transfusion. They state that testing for antibodies to the hepatitis B core antigen would have detected most of the infectious donations identified, although the practice would also detect non-infectious donors, which could result in a loss of donations. The researchers recommend cost analysis of the situation to determine if the benefits of such a testing system are warranted.

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