Prevalence of Anti-HIV and Anti-delta Among Deferred HBsAg-Positive Volunteer Blood Donors

Excerpt

To the editor: Concomitant infection with the human immunodefiency virus (HIV) or delta infection among asymptomatic blood donors positive for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) has not been well characterized. Therefore, an unlinked study to determine existing parallels in the prevalence of anti-HIV and anti-delta among deferred positive HBsAg asymptomatic volunteer blood donors was done. Donors were screened at the American Red Cross-South Florida Region from April 1984 to June 1985. Fifty-five percent of the volunteer blood donors were men and 45% women. Hepatitis B surface antigen, anti-delta, and anti-HIV were determined by commercially available enzyme-linked immunoassay (Abbott Laboratories, North