An entirely automatic system of nucleic acid amplification testing in blood screening and follow up study of positive donors

Objective To establish the entirely automatic method of nucleic acid amplification testing (NAT) for blood screening and to study the feasibility of NAT.Methods Using entirely automated extraction method to extract nucleic acid , amplified and detected by Roche COBAS AMPLICOR system,evaluating the sensitivity and efficacy.Results The 95% limits of HBV DNA, HCV RNA/HIV-1 RNA tests by automation system were 38.9,16.4IU/ml and 20.4 copies/ml,95% Confidence Intervals were [21,323], [10.5,342] and [12,300] respectively.8 of 16 512 donations were PCR for HBV DNA positive,the DNA positive rate was 0.048%.7/8 donations were Anti-HBc positive,The last one was also converted positive.No positive HCV RNA and HIV RNA was detected. 3/6 following up samples seroconverted.Conclusions The entirely automatic system can be applied in blood screening.