Occult Hepatitis B Infection and Its Role in Blood Safety: a Review

Blood transfusion plays a great role in public health and the blood safety still has remained a main concern. HBV has been considered as one of the most prevalent blood borne infections. It is estimated that chronic HBV affects 350-400 million people worldwide. Comprehensive knowledge about HBV has high importance in Iran due to high number of blood dependent patients. The data used in this research are derived from articles obtained by searching keywords like occult hepatitis B infection, thalassemia, hemophilia, hemodialysis, co-infection and blood transfusion in databases including PubMed, Google Scholar and Scopus. The prevalence, genotypes, HBV-HCV co-infection, HIV-HBV coinfection and their role in blood transfusion and blood safety are discussed in this review article. Iran is in intermediate endemicity region and studies have reported that between 10–60% of the Iranian population has the evidence of HBV infection, with 2-7% being chronic carriers. In blood donors the rate of infection is lower than general population. The occult hepatitis B infection is the main concern in blood safety due to transmission of the HBV via seronegative blood components. Iranian researches have reported a 1-2% prevalence of occult hepatitis B infection among Iranian blood donors. Based on our review findings the prevalence of HBV and occult hepatitis B infection in Iran is moderate, which shows the importance of taking necessary steps to reduce the transfer of infection via blood and its components.