Author(s)

Farag Bleiblo^1,2*, Abdelhakim Eljaki¹, Mohamed Bumadian¹, Khaled Elwaheishi¹, Eman Almismary¹, Mabroka Aljlale¹, Rabea Alghazal³, Mohammed Abraheem⁴

¹Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Science, University of Benghazi, Benghazi, Libya.
²Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Biomolecular Sciences Programme, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Canada.
³Immunology & Virology Laboratory, Benghazi Children Hospital, Benghazi, Libya.
⁴Department of Botany, Faculty of Arts and Science/Alkufra, University of Benghazi, Benghazi, Libya.

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a ubiquitous DNA-containing herpesvirus causes severe and fatal diseases in immunocompromised patients and a prevalent cause of virus-associated birth defects. Blood transfusion donated for neonates, pregnant women, and immunocom-promised patients should be adequately screened for evidences of CMV infection prior to use in clinical management. The effective national programmes for quality-assured screening of donated blood have not yet been fully established, hence this study was undertaken to assess whether any bloodborne-CMV infections pose a significant threat to the safety of the blood supplies. A total of 200 voluntary blood donor subjects admitted to the Blood Bank of Benghazi/Libya were screened for transfusion-transmissible CMV (TT-CMV) using a highly sensitive CMV total IgG and IgM antibody enzyme immunoassay as well as CMV pp65 anti-genemia assays. We determined that the overall seropositivity for IgG antibodies (80.50%) was higher than that of IgM antibodies (39.00%), but only 2 (1.00%) individuals out of these donors were seropositive for the CMV-antigenic protein pp65. The frequency of CMV infection based on gender was incomparable due to the small population number of blood-donated females. According to age, there was not influence of various age groups on prevalence of anti-CMV IgG antibodies, while a progressive increase in seropositivity of CMV-IgM antibodies with age was detected. The age groups were not significantly associated with CMV prevalence. In contrast, only 2 (1.00%) patients were shown to be positive for all three performed assays indicating a recurrent infection. Our findings prove a risk of primary transfusion-associated transmission of CMV and may provide a policy guidance on ensuring safe blood supplies accessible to all patients who require transfusion.

Cytomegalovirus, Seroprevalence, Blood Transfusion, Transfusion-Transmissible Cytomegalovirus, Enzyme Immunoassays

Bleiblo, F. , Eljaki, A. , Bumadian, M. , Elwaheishi, K. , Almismary, E. , Aljlale, M. , Alghazal, R. and Abraheem, M. (2020) Screening Donated Blood for Transfusion-Transmissible Cytomegalovirus Infection among Libyans. Journal of Biosciences and Medicines, 8, 5-12. doi: 10.4236/jbm.2020.81002.