Rastreamento sorológico para doenças infeccionsas em banco de sangue como indicador de morbidade populacional

Abstract

Screening tests of 62,814 blood donations curled out between October 85 and October 87 in all five blood banks of Goiania, Central Brazil, were analysed. The private institutions (3 blood banks) collected 80% of all donations and the remaining were collected by public blood banks. Seroprevalence of HIV, HBsAg, Chagas' disease and syphilis were compared with data obtained in the surveillance system and from previous surveys in an attempt to validate this source of health information. A seroprevalence of 0.07% for AIDS (one EL1SA test) was calculated, which may suggest the presence of 1900 infected individuals, in the population of the State of Goias as a whole. This figure seems reasonably close to the official data obtained by compulsory notification. For Chagas' disease, hepatitis B and syphilis seroprevalence of 3.3%, 1.3% and 4.1% were obtained, respectively. The potential usefulness and the limitations of screening in blood banks as a source of realibie morbidity indicator is discussed.