Abstract

Objective: To establish the prevalence of hepatitis B and C and factors related to coinfection with other markers screened in blood bank volunteer donors between 2006 and 2011 in a blood bank in Colombia. Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study. The study population consisted of 587,446 records of volunteer blood donors, of which 13,133 showed reactivity to hepatitis B and/ or hepatitis C; odds ratios were calculated to establish factors associated with coinfection. Results: The mean age was 38.55 ± 12.4. The odds ratios for simultaneous coinfection with other blood bank markers and analyzed variables were membership scheme 1.1 (1.04 to 1.36), gender 1,4 (1.22 – 1.61), and age 4.2 (3.54 to 4.99) for hepatitis B, and age 0.6 (0.38-1.00) and gender 5.1 (3.07-8.78) for hepatitis C. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that age is a risk factor for simultaneous reactivity with other screening markers in blood banks. A different behavior was found between gender according to existing coinfection studies.