Background: The risk of transfusion-transmissible infections (TTIs) of HBV, HCV, and HIV in Korea has been reduced significantly by strengthening the blood safety policies. On the other hand, the risk of TTI still exists due to the diagnostic window period or viral variants. Methods: The residual risks of TTI of HBV, HCV, and HIV were calculated from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2018 by dividing the data into two year sets. The residual risk was conducted by separating the donors who donated only once and those who donated more than once during each period. Results: In the first two years, the residual risks of HBV, HCV, and HIV were calculated to be 17.54/10 6 , 0.42/10 6 , and 0.30/10 6 respectively. The residual risk of HBV and HCV over the last two years was calculated to be 9.41/10 6 and 0.27/10 6 , showing a tendency to decrease with time. On the other hand, the residual risk of HIV over the last two years was calculated to be 0.29/10 6 , showing no significant difference. The residual risk in the donors who donated only once was higher than that in the donors who donated more than once during each period. Conclusion: The real transfusion-transmitted infection can be different from the estimated residual risk in this study because this study was based on the thesis that all NAT-reactive blood components cause infection. Because the residual risk of HBV is higher than HCV and HIV, it was considered that the safety measures for the HBV need to be improved continuously.
Background: Ever since the Korean Red Cross adopted HCV NAT for blood donor screening in 2005, HCV NAT reactive donors have been identified every year. The identification of the clinical features for these HCV NAT reactive donors may be helpful for the treatment and prevention of HCV infection. Methods: We analyzed HCV NAT reactive samples to examine the distribution of HCV RNA genotypes and the quantitative values of 128 and 47 HCV NAT reactive samples in 2007 and 2017, respectively. Results: The dominant genotype of the HCV NAT reactive donors was 1b showing 50.0% (64/128) in 2007 and 44.7% (21/47) in 2017. The genotype 2a was the second most dominant at 40.6% (52/128) in 2007 and 40.4% (19/47) in 2017. The mean titers of HCV RNA were 3.17×106 IU/mL in 2007 and 2.61×106 IU/mL in 2017. More than 90% of the donors showed a range of more than 1,000 IU/mL for the HCV RNA titer. There was no difference of quantitative values in the different genotypes. Conclusion: In this study, the distribution of HCV RNA genotypes in Korean blood donors showed a similar pattern compared to that of the general population. There was no correlation between the quantitative values and genotypes in the HCV NAT reactive blood donors, and there was no significant variation in the distribution of HCV RNA genotypes of the HCV NAT reactive donors between 2007 and 2017. Yet it is thought that the characteristics of HCV NAT reactive samples in other years have to be analyzed to achieve more significant results.
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