Research Article
Berhanu S, Abebaw S and Digiss
Abstract
Background: Blood is one of the integral components of body constituents; transfusion of blood and blood products is a lifesaving intervention and benefits numerous patients worldwide. Even if blood donation has invaluable benefits, it carries the risk of transmitting the life- threatening infectious agents. The prevalence of transfusion-transmissible infections (TTI) in blood donations ranges from 0.002% in high-income countries to 0.85% in low income countries for HIV. The aim of this study is to assess transfusion transmissible infections among voluntary blood donors at Debre Tabor blood bank. Method: An institutional based cross-sectional study design was conducted among voluntary blood donors at Debre Tabor blood bank from September 2014 – August 2017. All blood donors were included in the study and checklist was used to extract data from records. Epi-Data version 3.1 and SPSS version 20 were used to data entry and analysis respectively. Descriptive analysis was conducted to describe socio demographic, blood type related and blood borne pathogens. Finally, tables, figure and narration were used to display the results. Result: A total of 7255 blood units were collected during the study period. The mean age of donors was 21.16 ± SD 4.805 years, the mean weight 57.96 ± 7.25 Kg and males constitute 65.2% (4734). At least one of the blood borne pathogens were detected among 333 (4.6%) of blood units. The overall positivity rate for HIV, HBV, HCV and Syphilis was 30 (0.41%), 200 (2.76%), 49 (0.68%) and 54 (0.74%) respectively. Conclusion: The prevalence of blood borne pathogens among voluntary blood donors was high.