WASHINGTON, Aug 18 (AFP) - A new method of screening for HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C is making the US blood supply safer, according to a study released Wednesday.
Nucleic acid-amplification testing has detected the virus in instances where its concentration is too small to be picked up by other screening methods, the study by the National Institutes of Health, published in the August 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, showed.
The new state-of-the-art testing method has helped prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS in five different cases and hepatitis C in 56 cases, on average, per year between 1999 and 2002, according to the study.
The test "enhances the safety of the nation's blood supply by further reducing these risks (of transmitting HIV and hepatitis C)," said Barbara Alving, acting director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
The test is carried out on around 98 percent of the blood collected in the United States.
Researchers said nucleic acid-amplification testing had reduced the risk of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis infections to about one in two million units of blood, compared with one in 1.5 million for HIV and one in 276,000 for hepatitis when less comprehensive screening methods were used.
The new test has also proved effective in detecting emerging viruses. In 2003, it detected traces of the West Nile virus in blood from nearly 1,000 donors, whose donations were then discarded.
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