Hepatitis B virus (HBV) may be present in serum even when negative for HBV surface antigen (HBsAg). If routine screening of sera for anti-HBV core antigen (anti-HBc) is not done, low-level HBV viraemia may not be identified. A study was done on the presence of HBV DNA in serum samples from Mexican blood donors negative for HBsAg. Sera from 158 volunteer blood donors, negative for HBsAg and anti-HBs, but positive for anti-HBc, were analysed using nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR). HBV DNA was detected in sera from 13 (8.23%) of the 158. Specificity of the PCR-amplified products was corroborated using Southern blot. Single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis showed identical SSCP-banding patterns for all 13 PCR products, suggesting similar cDNA sequences. Occult HBV infection was observed in approximately 8% of anti-HBc only donors. The absence of HBsAg in the blood of apparently healthy individuals may not be sufficient to ensure lack of circulating HBV, and blood containing anti-HBc only may be infectious until proven otherwise.
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Garcı́a-Montalvo et al. (2005) studied this question.