A 30-year systematic review and meta-analysis of hepatitis B virus among blood donors in mainland China: revealing increase of new threats.

BACKGROUND: Although screening strategies have been routinely implemented in blood centers, the residual risk of transfusion-transmitted hepatitis B virus (HBV) still poses a public health concern in China. The aim of this study is to investigate the HBV blood screening reactive rate and to illustrate the demographics of the corresponding blood donors with revealing of heterogeneity between previous studies and discovering potentially negligent threats.

STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Literature reporting the HBV screening reactive rate in Chinese blood donors was identified by systematic searching of four electronic databases. We followed the Preferred Reporting of Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, and data manipulation and statistical analyses were performed by Stata 12.0.

RESULTS: Our results showed that the pooled postdonation screening reactive rate was 1.32% (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.28%-1.36%) with a significant variation from 3.93% (95% CI, 3.45%-4.40%) before 1998 to 1.22% (95% CI, 1.18%-1.27%) after 1998 when the Blood Donation Law was implemented. Importantly, the HBV screening reactive rates were significantly higher among replacement and planned donors than among individual voluntary donors.

CONCLUSION: Our results indicated blood centers in China should recruit more individual and group voluntary donors and convert more eligible first-time donors into repeat donors to reduce the risk of transfusion-transmitted HBV.