A new strategy to improve the cost-effectiveness of human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, and syphilis testing of blood donations in sub-Saharan Africa: a pilot study in Burkina Faso.

Background: In Africa where blood-borne agents are highly prevalent, cheaper and feasible alternative strategies for blood donations testing are specifically required.

Study Design And Methods: From May to August 2002, 500 blood donations from Burkina Faso were tested for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), syphilis, and hepatitis C virus (HCV) according to two distinct strategies. The first strategy was a conventional simultaneous screening of these four blood-borne infectious agents on each blood donation by using single-marker assays. The second strategy was a sequential screening starting by HBsAg. HBsAg-nonreactive blood donations were then further tested for HIV. If nonreactive, they were further tested for syphilis. If nonreactive, they were finally assessed for HCV antibodies. The accuracy and cost-effectiveness of the two strategies were compared.

Results: By using the simultaneous strategy, the seroprevalences of HBsAg, HIV, syphilis, and HCV among blood donors in Ouagadougou were estimated to be 19.2, 9.8, 1.6, and 5.2%. No significant difference of HIV, syphilis, and HCV prevalence rates was observed by using the sequential strategy (9.2, 1.9, and 4.7%, respectively). Whatever the strategy used, 157 blood donations (31.4%) were found to be reactive for at least one transfusion-transmissible agent and were thus discarded. The sequential strategy allowed a cost decrease of euro 908.6, compared to the simultaneous strategy. Given that approximately there are 50,000 blood donations annually in Burkina Faso, the money savings reached potentially euro 90,860.

Conclusions: In resource-limited settings, the implementation of a sequential strategy appears as a pragmatic solution to promote safe blood supply and ensure sustainability of the system.