A high prevalence of antibodies to hepatitis C virus among commercial plasma donors from Western India

Summary. A very high prevalence of anti‐hepatic C virus (anti‐HCV) antibodies (63/73, 86.3%) was noted among commercial plasma donors of an organization manufacturing blood products, studied in 1989. Retrospective serological analysis of these donors revealed continued high prevalence of anti‐HCV, i.e. 35/40 (87.5%) in 1988, 28/31 (90.3%) in 1987 and 86/94 (91.4%) in 1986. HCV RNA detection by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) demonstrated 15/33 (45.45%) plasma donors to be positive in 1989. Interestingly, 3/24 (12.5%) serum samples collected from employees of the organization were also anti‐HCV positive. All three anti‐HCV positive employees were directly associated with plasmapheresis. Of the three anti‐HCV positive employees one had been anti‐HCV positive since 1985, but the other two employees were negative during 1985–1987 and then became positive in 1987 and remained positive in 1989. One of these two employees was also a plasma donor. Commercial blood donors from a local blood bank had anti‐HCV prevalence of 13% which was significantly lower ( P < 0.001) when compared with plasma donors of the organization and significantly higher than volunteer blood donors (<0.25%, P < 0.01).