Prevalence of malaria among blood donors at the blood bank of a tertiary care referral teaching hospital in andhra pradesh, southern India

Back Ground: Blood can save lives but it can be a source of other problems like risk of immunological adverse reactions and transmission of blood borne pathogens. Malaria remains one of the most common transfusion transmitted infections and it has serious consequences especially with Plasmodium falciparum which is rapidly fatal. The present study was done to know the prevalence of malaria parasite among blood donors in our institute. Materials and Methods: It is a retrospective cross sectional analytical study conducted at the blood bank of tertiary care referral teaching hospital from January 2010 to December 2014 i.e. for a period of 5 years. A total of 36,331 donors were included in the study. Pan Malaria card based on Immuno-chromatographic technique was used for detection of malaria parasite. Results: The prevalence of malaria among blood donors is 0.03% (n=10). Among the 10 malaria positive donors 80% (n=8) were voluntary donors and 20% (n=2) were replacement donors. All the 10 donors were males. Conclusion: Though Tirupati being an endemic area, the prevalence of malaria in blood donors of our blood bank is more or less comparable to other studies. Proper donor selection and screening prior to donation might reduce the transmission of malaria parasite through blood transfusion.