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Hepatitis C Virus Stability: The Issue!

One of the major challenges concerning the implementation of nucleic acid testing (NAT) as a blood donor screening method is the question of how to store blood samples in order to get reliable results. Many reports have been published which quote the hepatitis C virus (HCV) as very unstable in serum; one of them even condemned the storage of clotted blood for longer than 2 h [1–3]. These findings suggest that for the appropriate NAT screening of blood donations the current sampling and storage conditions of blood samples have to be completely changed. However, sophisticated storage conditions might not always be practicable for the blood transfusion services with mobile blood collection units. Observations made in the German Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service of Baden-Württemberg (DRK-BSD BaWü) have always suggested that HCV is stable in serum samples which are kept at 4°C, even without separation of serum from the clot [4]. The study reported here was designed to evaluate variables such as HCV stability in serum versus plasma, individual stability of different sera and HCV-RNA titer in different blood components. Moreover, the current sampling, transport and storage conditions of blood samples collected by mobile units of the DRKBSD BaWü were taken into account when investigating these parameters. Rapid Communication