Prevalence of antibodies against the hepatitis C virus among voluntary blood donors at a makkah hospital.

One thousand four hundred and thirty nine voluntary blood donors attending the blood transfusion department at Al Noor Specialist Hospital, Makkah were screened for antibodies against hepatitis C virus (anti-HCV) by second generation enzyme linked immunosorbant assay (ELISA). A total of 52 donors (3.6%) were anti-HCV positive. Anti-HCV was detected in 1.7% of the Saudi donors as compared to 6.9% among Non-Saudi donors. Scrutiny of the data revealed a higher rate of anti-HCV in the age-group of above 40 years than in the other age groups. Further, when Non-Saudi blood donors were analysed according to their nationalities, Egyptian donors showed a prevalence of 27.2% of anti-HCV followed by Pakistanis (1.9%), Bangladeshis (1.9%), Yemenis (1.5%) and other nationalities (0.5%). When blood samples from 92 patients on maintenance hemodialysis were tested for anti-HCV, 75 (81.5%) patients were found positive for anti-HCV. We conclude that the prevalence of anti-HCV among blood donors in the Makkah region of Saudi Arabia is high and routine screening for anti-HCV should be conducted for all blood donors before they are accepted for donation.