Retrospective audit of blood donation at a hospital-based blood centre - Implications for blood product supply and safety

An audit of blood donation at the University Hospital of the West Indies (U HWI) was performed between January 1995 and December 1998. During these fou r years, 21,733 persons attended the blood collection centre and 6711 (30.8 %) were rejected as donors. Females accounted for 3,054 (45.6%) of rejected donors while 3,647 (54.4%) were males. Females were rejected primarily bec ause of low haemoglobin levels, while rejection of males was most frequentl y attributed to symptoms of the common cold and recent drug use. One hundre d and two rejected donors (1.5%) admitted to recent treatment for a sexuall y transmitted disease, and 138 (2.0%) presented within 16 weeks of a prior donation. Of 15,022 units donated, altruistic voluntary donations accounted for 307 (2%) and 53 (0.3%) were autologous donations. Seven hundred and fo ur units (4.6%) were discarded because of positivity on initial testing for a marker of transmissible infection. Overall prevalence for markers of inf ection was 2.5% for HTLV-I, 0.9% for Hepatitis B and 0.4% for HIV I/II. Don ations at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) collection cent re contributed 15.8% of the national blood supply for the period under stud y.