Prevalence of HCV and HIV/HCV co-infection among volunteer blood donors and VCT clients.

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of HCV infection and HCV/HIV co-infection among voluntary blood donors at the National Blood Transfusion Centre and clients at the Kenyatta National Hospital HIV-Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) Centre. DESIGN A prospective cross-sectional descriptive study. SETTING Kenyatta National Hospital, a tertiary referral and teaching hospital and the National Blood Transfusion Services Centre, Nairobi. SUBJECTS Volunteer blood donors and VCT attendants. RESULTS The prevalence of HCV/HIV co-infection among 6154 blood donors in the NBTSC was very low, at 0.02. The HIV prevalence among the 353 KNH HIV-VCT clients was 9.3%, none of the clients tested positive for HCV. The incidence of risk factors in the persons with HCV and/or HIV infection(s) was low. CONCLUSION The prevalence of HCV infection among pre-screened volunteer blood donors was low. However the current practice of screening all donated blood for HCV remains indispensable to prevent its transmission to blood recipients.