NAT positivity in seronegative voluntary blood donors from western India.

Background And Objectives: Prevalence and composition of Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV-1, NAT positive but seronegative voluntary blood donors from western part of India is yet to be documented.

Material And Methods: Over last 2 1/ years all the seronegative voluntary blood donors were tested using 10 minipools on a semiautomated NAT testing platform. The positively tested donors were followed up for at least five months for development of seropositivity.

Assessment of semi-automated nucleic acid testing programme in a Regional Blood Transfusion Centre.

Background: Detection of human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1), hepatitis-C (HCV) and hepatitis-B virus (HBV) in the blood donors is crucial. An efficient form of detection is nucleic acid testing (NAT) in blood screening. We assessed the suitability of commercial NAT testing in a developing country, focusing on the Altona RealStar assay and the method of Sacace Biotechnologies.