occult hepatitis b infection and its role in blood safety: a review

background: blood transfusion plays a great role in public health and the blood safety still has remained a main concern. hbv has been considered as one of the most prevalent blood borne infections. it is estimated that chronic hbv affects 350-400 million people worldwide. comprehensive knowledge about hbv has high importance in iran due to high number of blood dependent patients. material and methods: the data used in this research are derived from articles obtained by searching keywords like occult hepatitis b infection, thalassemia, hemophilia, hemodialysis, co-infection and blood transfusion in databases including pubmed, google scholar and scopus. the prevalence, genotypes, hbv-hcv co-infection, hiv-hbv coinfection and their role in blood transfusion and blood safety are discussed in this review article. results: iran is in intermediate endemicity region and studies have reported that between 10–60% of the iranian population has the evidence of hbv infection, with 2-7% being chronic carriers. in blood donors the rate of infection is lower than general population. the occult hepatitis b infection is the main concern in blood safety due to transmission of the hbv via seronegative blood components. iranian researches have reported a 1-2% prevalence of occult hepatitis b infection among iranian blood donors. conclusion: based on our review findings the prevalence of hbv and occult hepatitis b infection in iran is moderate, which shows the importance of taking necessary steps to reduce the transfer of infection via blood and its components. keywords: hepatitis b virus, prevalence, blood donor, safety.