Prolonged hepatitis C virus seroconversion in a blood donor, detected by HCV Antigen test in parallel with HCV RNA

Some industrialized countries are screening blood donations for hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA, at a considerable cost, in order to reduce the risk of HCV transmission. This cost will become disproportionately high when a patent cost is introduced by the manufacturers for each unit of blood tested [1]. Since July 1999, all allogeneic blood donations in the Valencian Community Blood Transfusion Centre (Spain) have been tested by reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT–PCR) (Ampliscreen  HCV 2·0; Roche Diagnostics, Branchburg, NJ) analysis of minipools of 44 or 22 donations.