Background: Availability of safe blood and blood products for transfusion is increasingly difficult globally, especially in developing countries because of high prevalence of Transfusion Transmissible Infections.
Objectives: To determine the prevalence of HBsAg among blood donors and to evaluate the socio-economic, demographic and medical factors associated with its infection.
Design: A prospective study.
Subjects: Three hundred and fifty consecutive blood donors were recruited. 2 ml of venous blood was collected aseptically from the ante-cubital vein and subjected to serological test for HBsAg.
Results: High prevalence rate 10.9% was recorded. All the donors reactive to HBsAg were males (38,100%) with a mean age of 30.7 ± 8.02 years, while 55.3%, 44.7%, 5.3%, 42%, 47.4%, 5.3% of them were single, married, primary school graduate, secondary school graduate, tertiary school graduate and illiterate respectively with 36.8%, 23.7%, 39.5% and 0% been unemployed, civil servants/professionals, skilled artisans and business/petty traders. The most common risk factor was multiple sexual partners 55.3%, followed by extra marital affairs 13.2%, tattooing 10.5%, previous blood transfusion 5.2%, previous surgery 2.6% and sex trading 2.6%.
Conclusion: Active public enlightenment programmes and strict blood donation selection criteria need to be put in place in order to provide safe blood and blood products for transfusion.