Efficacy of donor screening for hepatitis C antibodies in preventing hepatitis C infection in multiply transfused patients

Summary. Patients undergoing therapy for haematological malignancies, who received blood products from United Kingdom (U.K.) donors who were unscreened for hepatitis C antibodies (anti-HCV), have previously been shown to be at risk of acquiring HCV (Brink et al., 1993). Screening for anti-HCV has recently been introduced into the U.K. and, in order to determine the efficacy of this in preventing transfusion-acquired HCV infection, we monitored a group of patients for possible acute HCV infection for 1 year after the introduction of donor screening in the U.K. We identified no new cases of HCV infection that were acquired in the U.K. during this period, thus demonstrating the efficacy of the currently available anti-HCV assays in preventing the majority of transfusion-acquired HCV infections.