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. 2022 Jul;117(7):920-928.
doi: 10.1111/vox.13270. Epub 2022 Mar 17.

Implementation of an Africa-specific donor health questionnaire for human immunodeficiency virus risk screening

Claude T Tagny  1   2 , Georges Ikomey  2 , Françoise Ngo Sack  3 , Celestin Achu  1 , Matthias Ndemanou  1 , Catherine Ninmou  3 , Caroline Gesu  4 , Gilbert Essomba  5 , Alexandra Fongue Simo  1 , Georges Nguefack Tsague  2 , Dora Mbanya  1   2 , Edward Murphy  6
Affiliations

Implementation of an Africa-specific donor health questionnaire for human immunodeficiency virus risk screening

Claude T Tagny et al. Vox Sang. 2022 Jul.

Abstract

Background and objectives: We had previously developed an Africa-specific donor health questionnaire (ASDHQ) based on local risk factors and designed a scoring scheme. This study assessed the performance of a new donor health questionnaire by comparing the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) status in accepted versus deferred donors by ASDHQ and comparing the rate of risk deferrals with historical data.

Materials and methods: Data were collected during a cross-sectional study conducted over 15 months at three referral-hospital-based blood services in Cameroon. ASDHQ was administered to blood donors aged 18-65 years in the same screening conditions as the routine questionnaire. The main outcomes of the study were ASDHQ sensitivity and specificity with regard to HIV laboratory testing as well as donor deferral rates for each of the routine screening algorithms and for ASDHQ.

Results: Overall, 71/11,120 (0.6%) were confirmed as HIV positive. The mean ASDHQ score was 95.80 ± 4.4 in HIV-negative donors and 94.80 ± 4.4 in HIV-positive donors (p = 0.05). The optimal cut-off provided by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for the best performance of ASDHQ was 95.04. Using this optimal cut-off, the ASDHQ sensitivity and specificity were 57% and 53%, respectively (area under curve = 0.58 [0.51, 0.64], p = 0.028). Using ASDHQ, the HIV prevalence was 0.7% in deferred donors and 0.6% in accepted donors.

Conclusion: ASDHQ might be efficient only in specific conditions that maximize truthful donor responses, requiring each blood service to create an environment of trust and transparency to increase donor compliance and improve the accuracy of the questionnaire.

Keywords: Africa; HIV; blood safety; donor health questionnaire.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest

The authors have disclosed no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1:
Figure 1:
Selection and testing procedures in the 3 participating facilities YUTH: Yaounde University Teaching Hospital YCH: Yaounde Central Hospital BRH: Bafoussam Regional Hospital ASDHQ: African specific donor heath questionnaire; RQ: Routine Questionnaire; PDT : Predonation testing
Figure 2:
Figure 2:
Testing outcomes in the 3 participating facilities YUTH: Yaounde University Teaching Hospital YCH: Yaounde Central Hospital BRH: Bafoussam Regional Hospital ASDHQ: African specific donor heath questionnaire; RQ: Routine Questionnaire; RDT1: First rapid determination testing (pre or post donation) RDT2: Second rapid determination testing (post donation)
Figure 3:
Figure 3:
The ASDHQ area under the curve using the ROC
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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