PREVALENCE OF ANTI-HTLV-I/II IN SLOVENIAN BLOOD DONORS AND THEIMPACT ON BLOOD SCREENING
Abstract
BACKGROUND Human T-limphotropic viruses type I and II are retroviruses. People infected withHTLV-I/II are usually asymptomatic, lifelong antibodies carriers. Transfusion of blood components is one of the modes of virus transmissions. Thus, transmission can be preventedwith screening of blood and/or cells, tissues, organs. Blood donor screening is performed incountries with high prevalence of HTLV-I/II and also in some European countries. The aimof our study was to determine the prevalence of HTLV-I/II infections in Slovenian blooddonors screening and to make a decision about the implementation of blooddonors screening. METHODS Collected blood donations were screened for anti-HTLV-I/II by modified ELISA (ChLIA)on the Prism testing system (Abbott). Initially reactive samples were additionally testedin duplicate and also with another enzyme immunoassay Murex HTLV I+II (Abbott).Confirmatory testing was performed with immunoblot test INNO-LIA HTLV I/II Score(Innogenetics). RESULTS Out of 9398 screened units 6 samples were initially reactive. All 6 samples were non-reactive after testing with another enzyme immunoassay Murex HTLV I+II (Abbott) and negative in confirmatory testing with immunoblot test INNO-LIA HTLV I/II Score (Innogenetics).Conclusion In our prevalence study of HTLV-I/II infections in Slovenian blood donors population wegot no confirmed positive result among 9398 blood donors. The yield is as expected and issimilar to other European countries. In countries with a low HTLV-I/II infectious rate, suchas Slovenia, only screening of new donors, donors from endemic areas and/or donorstravelling to endemic areas is rationalDownloads
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