Decreasing trends in HTLV-1/2 but steady HIV-1 infection among replacement donors in Argentina

BERINI C, GENDLER S, PASCUCCIO S, EIRIN ME, MCFARLAND W, PAGE K, CARNEVALI L, MURPHY E, BIGLIONE M

JOURNAL OF MEDICAL VIROLOGY

Wiley

Año: 2010 vol. 82 p. 873 - 877

0146-6615

In Argentina, current procedures to ensure safety of the blood supply for transfusion include reviewing the records of blood donors with particular attention to the serologic detection of specific blood borne infections. Data of 28,483 blood donations received from 1st January 2003 to 31st December 2008 in a public hospital in Buenos Aires were analyzed. Of the 28,483 blood donations, 7,442 (26.1%) were female donors, 14,582 (51.2%) were younger than 35 years-old, and 23,746 (83.4%) were Argentine. Among all, only 285 (1.0%) were voluntary donations. The prevalence of HTLV-1/2 was 0.1% (95% CI 0.063-0.15), being 0.07% for HTLV-1 and 0.03% for HTLV-2. The prevalence of HIV-1 was 0.2% (95% CI 0.110-0.206). No HIV-1/HTLV-1/2 co-infections were detected among volunteer donors. During this study period, data confirm that HTLV-1/2 infection was not endemic in Buenos Aires, and that the prevalence of HTLV-1/2 decreased throughout while HIV-1 was stable. Due to the small number of voluntary donations, we could not conduct comparisons to infection rates in replacement donations. Although there have been several ongoing programs aimed at recruiting voluntary blood donations and changing from a mostly repository system to an altruistic system of blood donations, Argentina is still far from reaching this objective. More efforts are needed in order to increase and assure the quality of blood supply in this country.