Syphilis Screening Practices in Blood Transfusion Facilities in Ghana
OBJECTIVE:
The
primary objective of the study was to compare laboratory practices for
screening blood donors for syphilis at blood transfusion facilities in Ghana
with WHO and The National Blood Service, Ghana (NBSG) recommendations. In
addition we estimated the prevalence of syphilis antibodies in blood donors in
Ghana.
METHODS:
Over an
11-month period from February 2014 to January 2015, we administered a
semi-structured questionnaire to 122 laboratory technical heads out of a total
of 149 transfusion facilities in Ghana and the response rate was 81.9%.
RESULTS:
A total
of 58 (48%) transfusion facilities tested donors for syphilis with an estimated
3.7% seroprevalence (95% CI; 3.6% - 3.8%). A total of 62,782 out of 91,386
(68.7%) donations were tested with assays that are not recommended. Voluntary
donations had an estimated syphilis seroprevalence of 2.9% compared with family
donations of 4.0% (p=0.001). Only 6.9% of the health facilities were using
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
CONCLUSION:
Despite
international and national recommendations more than half of the studied health
facilities that provide blood transfusions in Ghana are not screening blood
donations for syphilis. Our data show a considerable mismatch between
recommendations and practice with serious consequences for blood safety and
public health.
- 1Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Kumasi, Ghana; Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK. Electronic address: fsarkodie29@gmail.com.
- 2Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK.
- 3School of Public Health, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana; Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research, KNUST, Ghana.
- 4Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Kumasi, Ghana.
- 5Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
- 6National Blood Service, Ghana.
- 7Department of Clinical Immunology, Copenhagen, University Hospital Denmark.
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