Nucleic acid amplification technology screening for hepatitis C virus and human immunodeficiency virus for blood donations.

Objective: To investigate the performance of the commercial Roche COBAS AmpliScreen assay, and demonstrate whether the COBAS AmpliScreen human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) test, v1.5, and COBAS AmpliScreen hepatitis C virus (HCV) v 2.0 for screening for HIV-1 and HCV RNA in the donated blood units from which plasma mini pools were collected, by nucleic acid amplification technology (NAT), could detect the positive pools and reduce the risk of transmission of infections for those routinely tested by serological assays.