Abstract:

Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) serves as a serological marker for Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. People with HBV asymptomatic infection might readily donate blood due to the lack of clinical manifestations. Host immunity contributes to susceptibility and progression of infection. A polymorphism in IL-10 gene promoter, rs1800896, might contribute to host immunity. This study was conducted on May 2019 – January 2020 in Faculty of Medicine, University of Riau on  70 blood samples from donors  in the Indonesian Red Cross Pekanbaru. Out of these samples, 35 were reactive for HBsAg and 35 donors were nonreactive. Genotyping of rs1800896 was conducted using Amplification Refractory Mutation System (ARMS-PCR). In total, The distribution of AA (74.3%), AG (24.3%), and GG (1.4%) genotypes revealed in this study seemed to be similar to genotype distribution among East and South-East Asian populations. While no significant difference was observed on age mean and gender distribution, a significant difference was identified in  genotype distribution between HBsAg status (p-value 0.028) with the percentage of AA genotype was higher among HBsAg-nonreactive donors (85.7%) compared to reactive donors (62.9%). More studies should be conducted to characterize HBsAg-reactive blood donors, including the donor characteristics and the viral genotypes. Such studies should contribute to hepatitis B management in Indonesia.

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