Hamid Reza Safabakhsh, Gharib Karimi, Hossein Hatami,
Volume 11, Issue 4 (3-2014)
Abstract
Background and Aim: Human T-Cell Lymphotropic Virus (Type I) is the cause of two major diseases : Adult T cell Leukemia-Lymphoma and Tropical Spastic Paraparasia and Myelopathy associated with HTLV-I. Disease transmission is possible during unsafe sexual contact, blood transfusion and vertical transmission method. Blood safety and minimizing the risk of transfusion transmitted infections are the main goals of blood transfusion organization. Mashhad is located in an endemic area and it is essential to investigate about the virus epidemiology.
Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study from 1388 to 1389. all the blood donation volunteers, who were eligible for blood donation but had HTLV serum positive results in both screening and confirmatory tests with Elisa and Western Blot method, respectively, were considered as HTLV infected individuals. The infected group was compared with a group of healthy blood donors as a witness group. The data were analyzed by SPSS-17 software.
Results: Out of all 432 infected donors, 353(% 81.7) were male and 79 (% 18.3) were female. The prevalence rate in two years of study was %0.26 and %0.25 Respectively . There was a significant relation between age, sex, marital status, education levels and history of blood donation with HTLV-1 seropositivity.
Conclusions: Because of the improvements in donor screening and laboratory methods , the prevalence of HTLV-1 infection among blood donors has currently decreased. According to the low rate of infection among younger blood donors, regular blood donors and donors with higher educational levels ,it should be considered to select donors from these groups.
