Survey of hepatitis markers among donors in the State of Qatar

A total of 78,428 blood units collected by the Blood Donor Unit, Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha, from the multinational donors of Qatar (28,622 Qatari nationals donors and 49,806 Non-Qatari donors) in the period January 1994 to Dececember 2001 were screened for hepatitis markers. About 10,382 units (13.2 %) were discarded because of positivity for one or more hepatitis markers ; 769 units (0.9 %) were positive for hepatitis-B surface antigen (HBsAg), 8516 units (10.9 %) were positive for hepatitis- B core antibodies (HBcAb) and 1097 units (1.39 %) were positive for hepatitis C (HCV) antibodies. There was no significant difference between the rate of positivity for HBcAb and HBsAg in indigenous Qataris and Non-Qataris despite a slightly higher rate of positivity for HCV antibodies in the Non-Qatari group. An outstanding finding was the significantly high rate of positivity for HCV antibodies in Egyptian donations (11.2 %), which accounted for 31.2 % of all discards for the Non-Qatari group. As the Blood Donor Unit at HMC is the only blood collection center in Qatar it is assumed that the results could be representative of the country as a whole.