The Prevalence of Occult Hepatitis B Virus Infection among Hepatitis B Surface Antigen Sero-negative Blood Donors

The signature of occult hepatitis B virus is in its ability to escape detection by hepatitis surface antigen (HBsAg) rapid kit which is the only kit certified across Nigerian health institutions. This phenomenon is a measure set back to haemotherapuetics with increased risk of transfusion with the hidden virus. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of occult HBV infection among blood donors. In this cross-sectional study, 250 well-screened HB-vaccinated and unvaccinated blood donors were enrolled at some selected secondary health facilities across the six Abuja District hospitals. A well-structured questionnaire was administered to obtain donor biodata and socio-demographic characteristics, CLIA, HB-5 panel check (Arial), HBV DNA analysis, and viral load was performed to ascertain the OBI. Serological confirmation using CLIA technique reveals 8 (3.2%), 11 (4.4%) HCV, 5 (2.0%) VDRL and 30 (12.0%) HBV detection among blood donors already certified free to donate with overall 54 (9.6%) positive blood unit out of 250 sample assayed. Virologic markers reveals 28 (11.2%) HBsAb, 1 (0.4%) HBeAg, 5 (2.0%) HBeAb and 5 (1.6%) HBcAb with 1 detectable viral of 37.0 (IU/ml) among HB-vaccinated blood donors. Similarly, a corresponding 51 (20.4%) HBsAb, 17 (6.8%) HBeAg, 27 (10.8%) HBeAb and 19 (7.6%) HBcAb with mean viral load of 129.8 ±11.3 (IU/ml) among HB-unvaccinated blood donors. Our finding reports the prevalence of occult HBV DNA of 5.2% with the highest in male blood donors with post-secondary school educational status at mean age of 39.5 ± 15.9 years of age. This result underscores the need to urgent intervention in the area of improving diagnostic sensitivity and to design new blood donor screening protocol to enhance transfusion safety.