Abstract

RESTREPO, BERTA NELLY; ARCILA, LINA MARCELA  and  RAMIREZ, RUTH. Presence of IgM antibodies against dengue virus in blood donors, Medellin. CES Med. [online]. 2009, vol.23, n.2, pp.15-19. ISSN 0120-8705.

Objective: to determine the frequency of IgM antibodies against the dengue virus in blood donors of the red cross blood bank of Medellin. Methods: A cross sectional descriptive study was performed trough 27th March to 25th May of 2009. Sampling was by convenience and it was constituted of 100 blood donors. Each person was asked for 6 mL of the donated blood sample. IgM antibody detection was performed with a commercially available technique; IgM Dengue captures ELISA. In addition, demographic information was collected. Results: 67 % of the participants were men. The median was 28.5 years old, (range=18 to 56 years). 75 % of the participants were from Medellin city. In the study, it was found that 2 % of donors were reactive for anti-DENV IgM. Both donors were men. One donor lives in the city of Medellín and the other lives in the city of Caldas. None of them had a history of dengue fever three months before of donation or fever seven days before of donation. Conclusions: This findings suggest that asymptomatic donors can transmit dengue infection through blood transfusion, but it is required to perform other survey with a bigger sample during different epidemiological periods and with laboratory techniques like RT-PCR for virus identification.

Keywords : Dengue fever; Antibodies IgM; Blood donors; Medellin.

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