Hepatitis C virus infection-associated markers in sera from blood donors in Surabaya, Indonesia

Among 2,233 sera obtained from volunteer blood donors, 259 (11.6%) showed elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels. A second-generation enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) revealed that 23 (8.9%) of the 259 sera were positive for antibodies against hepatitis C virus (HCV), whereas only 9 (1.4%) of 646 sera randomly collected from blood donors with normal ALT levels were positive (P<0.001). The overall prevalence of anti-HCV antibodies among blood donors was estimated to be 2.3%. HCV RNA was detected in 19 (83%) of the 23 anti-HCV-positive sera with elevated ALT levels, and 8 (89%) of the 9 sera with normal ALT levels. Among the anti-HCV-positive sera, IgM anti-HCV was detected in 5 (22%) of 23 sera with elevated ALT levels and in 2 (22%) of 9 sera with normal ALT levels. All of the IgM anti-HCV-positive sera were positive for HCV RNA, irrespective of ALT levels.