Hep B transfusion risk lower

◄ Back to Transfusion News

Australia has one of the safest blood supplies in the world in terms of viral safety. The Blood Service regularly publishes estimates of the residual risks of transfusion-transmissible infection as a guide for clinicians in transfusion decision-making and informed consent processes. These represent median risk estimates and have been derived using four published models.

The residual risk for transfusion-transmitted hepatitis B (HBV) in Australia is composed of the risk from acute and chronically infected donors, which are modelled separately. The Blood Service’s Dr Clive Seed and colleagues have recently published refinements to the chronic HBV model, resulting in a more than 10-fold reduction in the risk.

This update resulted in a substantially reduced overall HBV residual risk compared with the previous figure of approximately 1 in 557,000 per unit transfused. Consistent with hepatitis C, HTLV and HIV residual risk estimates, the risk of acquiring hepatitis B from transfusion is now considered negligible: that is, less than 1 in 1 million per unit transfused.

To learn more visit transfusion.com.au/adverse_events/risks/estimates or see Seed CR, Kiely P, Hoad VC, Keller AJ: Refining the risk estimate for transfusion-transmission of occult hepatitis B virus. Vox Sang 2016. DOI:10.1111/vox.12446.