All blood distributed by the Red Cross

All blood distributed by the Red Cross transfusion service in BC is being tested for an elusive form of hepatitis, the origins of which have been discovered only during the past two years.

A spokesman for the Red Cross blood service said Thursday from Vancouver that blood collected in the province now is screened for a biochemical particle called the Australia antigen which induces serum hepatitis. Serum hepatitis, long linked with contaminated blood transfusions and inadequately sterilized needles and syringes is as damaging as infective hepatitis, which has been connected with impure water.

Health authorities in Greater Victoria, for example, over the years have stated that the infectious hepatitis rate here is high because of the great number of septic tanks that drain into ditches and the untreated sewage that is washed or piped into the sea.

There were 56 cases of infectious hepatitis reported here during the first 5 1/2 months of this year.

However, studies have indicated that not everyone who consumes contaminated water comes down with infectious hepatitis. Such was the outbreak that befell the Holy Cross football team from Worcester, Mass., last year in which 97 players and camp followers were exposes to contaminated drinking water but only 32 developed hepatitis.

However none of those players nor companions carried the Australia antigen — so named because it was first found in the blood of an Australian aborigine — in their bloodstreams.

This was one of the first indications, since confirmed in other studies, that the antigen could clearly be associated with serum hepatitis, similar to infectious hepatitis in symptoms.

Nevertheless, the factor that gravely worried blood transfusion services, and resulted in screening such as that used in BC, was that only about half of the serum hepatitis patients show symptoms of this serious disease.

The inference to blood transfusions was alarming — people who appear as healthy donors might be spreading this serious disease.In addition to curbing the spread of serum hepatitis, the Red Cross tests may be identifying persons with early liver cancer and cirrhosis of the liver.

In one study, a 20-per-cent incidence of the antigen has been found in cases of liver cirrhosis and a 14-per-cent incidence in cancer cases.