Molecular characterization of hepatitis B virus in blood donors in Botswana.

ABSTRACT: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) poses a significant threat to blood transfusion safety in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where allogeneic blood donations are screened serologically, and more sensitive nucleic acid tests (NATs) are utilized infrequently. HBV strains circulating among blood donors in Botswana are not yet characterized. We designed a cross-sectional study to determine the HBV sub-genotypes and prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) among blood donors between November 2014 and October 2015. A total of 12,575 blood donations were screened for HBsAg and 50 consecutive plasma samples were selected for genotyping from confirmed HBsAg⁺ donations. Overlapping Pol and complete S (Pol/S) open reading frames (ORFs) were sequenced from extracted HBV DNA. To identify any signatur

SUBMITTER: Choga WT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6563613 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature