The designation of PCR test to detect hepatitis B virus and evaluate the performance of this test in screening applicants of blood transfusion organization

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is of common viruses that transmitted by blood and blood products. The aim of this study is to design a polymerase chain reaction-based test to detect HBV in clinical samples. In this study, one blood sample with known load of HBV is prepared to assess the ability of designed primer pair. The specificity of the primer pair was somewhat confirmed by testing against three common virus types, in addition to bioinformatics analysis. The test was also used to screen applicants of blood transfusion organization of Kashan and its results compared with results of a current method used by this organization.
The results of this study showed that the designed primer pair specifically amplifies the HBV genome and its sensitivity is 100 particle per ml of blood, which is more sensitive than the results of the ELISA method currently used in blood transfusion organization. In clinical samples, however, the results of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test were completely in accordant with the results obtained by blood transfusion organization after confirmatory tests.
The designed test has no false positive results in contrast to ELISA, which, in addition to preventing the exclusion of healthy volunteer blood donors, could also have a significant role in reducing costs of the organization. So, it seems that it can replace the current screening method of this virus, that firstly the cost of doing it is much lower and secondly a part of bona fide person are not prevented from donating blood.