Anti‐HBc screening of blood donors: a comparison of nine anti‐HBc tests

Background and Objectives  Since voluntary introduction of hepatitis B virus (HBV) minipool nucleic acid amplification technology (NAT) at the German Red Cross, the expected residual risk of a transfusion‐associated HBV infection has been estimated to be 1 : 500 000 – about 10 times higher than for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Donors demonstrating chronic positivity for antibody to hepatitis B core antigen (anti‐HBc), negativity for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR)‐negative with a low virus load are a major cause of this increased risk.

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