Screening of serologically negative plasma pools for hepatitis C virus by nucleic acid amplification testing in Croatia, 2001-2003

A residual risk of HCV infection by different blood products exists due to blood donations collected during the serological window period in the early stages of infection. The aim of this study is nucleic acid amplification technique (NAT)-based screening of the anti-HCV negative plasma pools obtained from various Croatian transfusion centres between 2001 and 2003 for HCV RNA. During this period 2647 anti-HCV negative plasma pools were tested by NAT and 12 (0.45%) HCV RNA positive pools were detected. In comparison to the results of our previous study [Forčić D, Zgorelec R, Branović K, Košutić-Gulija T, Šantak M, Mažuran R. Incidence of hepatitis C virus RNA in anti-HCV negative plasma pools in Croatia. Transfus Apher Sci 2001;24:269-78], a remarkable decrease in the number of positive plasma pools (from 2.1% to 0.45%) was demonstrated.