NAT Test for HIV-1/HCV in Blood Donations

A nucleic acid test (NAT) for HIV-1 and hepatitis C virus (HCV) is being used to screen blood donations in England by the National Blood Service. NAT is now mandated by many European national health authorities to screen blood donations for HIV-1 and HCV.

Called Procleix, the test is designed to detect the presence of all known HIV-1 groups and subtypes and all known HCV genotypes in human plasma during the very early stages of infection when those agents are present but cannot yet be detected by immunodiagnostic tests. It has been demonstrated that the introduction of NAT testing can narrow the time from infection to detection by as much as 10 days for HIV-1 and by as much as 60 days for HCV. Procleix was developed by Chiron Corp. (Emeryville, CA, USA) and Gen-Probe Inc. (San Diego, CA, USA).

"Assuring the security of the blood supply in England is our top priority, and wherever possible, we try to avoid being dependent on a single system or supplier,” said Richard Bedford, assistant director, National Blood Service. "Modifying our NAT HCV screening system to include the Chiron Procleix System to test one-third of our donated blood represents a significant step forward for us.”




Related Links:
Chiron
Gen-Probe