Sir, Screening of blood is now mandatory for many diseases and is undertaken routinely in
blood banks. Many studies have been done on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV),
syphillis, Australia antigen (HBsAg), hepatiis C virus (HCV) separately, but the knowledge
about the interrelationship between these transfusion transmitted diseases (TTD's) is limited,
the present study was undertaken to find out the prevalence and correlation between
various infectious markers in healthy blood donors.

The prevalences of and correlation among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection,
hepatitis B, hepatitis C and syphilis in healthy blood donors were determined. 44 064 blood
units were collected from the Department of Transfusion Medicine, Dayanand Medical
College and Hospital, Ludhiana, Punjab, India, during January 2001-October 2003. The
blood samples were screened for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and antibodies
against HIV-1/2, hepatitis B core antigen (anti-HBc), hepatitis C virus (anti-HCV), and …