EFFICACY OF DONOR SCREENING FOR HEPATITIS-C ANTIBODIES IN PREVENTING HEPATITIS-C INFECTION IN MULTIPLY TRANSFUSED PATIENTS

Patients undergoing therapy for haematological malignancies, who recei ved blood products from United Kingdom (U.K.) donors who were unscreen ed for hepatitis C antibodies (anti-HCV), have previously been shown t o be at risk of acquiring HCV (Brink et al., 1993). Screening for anti -HCV has recently been introduced into the U.K. and, in order to deter mine the efficacy of this in preventing transfusion-acquired HCV infec tion, we monitored a group of patients for possible acute HCV infectio n for 1 year after the introduction of donor screening in the U.K. We identified no new cases of HCV infection that were acquired in the U.K . during this period, thus demonstrating the efficacy of the currently available anti-HCV assays in preventing the majority of transfusion-a cquired HCV infections.