Effectiveness of three types of rapid tests for the detection of hepatitis C virus antibodies among blood donors in Alexandria, Egypt

• Evaluating three anti-HCV rapid tests among blood donors.
• High sensitivity and specificity of rapid tests compared to ELISA.
• 100% sensitivity of ELISA compared to RT-PCR.
• Suitability of rapid tests as screening tests for HCV in blood banks.

Hepatitis C is one of the most important diseases transmitted through screened improperly blood donation. The detection of HCV antibodies is performed by enzyme immunoassays (EIA) or supplementary assays (immunoblots). However, these methods are not well-suited to developing countries due to their high cost and technicality.The effectiveness of three different rapid tests for the detection of anti-HCV antibodies was evaluated compared to third-generation ELISA among blood donors attending the blood bank of Medical Research Institute in Alexandria, Egypt. The results were compared subsequently to the results of HCV RNA obtained by qualitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).The three types of rapid tests showed a specificity of 100% and sensitivities of 96–98% compared to ELISA. Compared to RT-PCR, ELISA and all three types of rapid tests showed an almost equal specificity (77–78.5%). ELISA showed 100% sensitivity while all three types of rapid tests showed equal sensitivities of 97% compared to RT-PCR.The rapid tests showed good performance for detecting anti-HCV antibodies in the sera of blood donors compared to ELISA. Therefore, the present study recommends the use of the tested rapid tests to screen for anti-HCV among blood donors in resource-limited countries as an alternative for conventional ELISA.