HTLV‐III Antibody Testing in Three Danish Blood Banks

The Organon Teknika Vironostika anti-HTLV-III/LAV test was evaluated in three Danish blood banks. The evaluation comprised in total 3,940 consecutive donors. In all three blood banks the tests were carried out exactly according to the manufacturer's instructions, using a low cut-off value defined as (4N + P)/5, where N and P are means of optical densities of known negative and positive samples. By this method the overall frequency of repeatably positive samples was 0.30%. When tested by Western blot, however, none of these samples were shown to contain specific antibodies against HTLV-III/LAV proteins. When testing different categories of patients, only sera containing HLA antibodies gave rise to false-positive reactions. Finally, important differences in the results were observed regarding sample preparation, single or dual wavelength optical density readings, and the experience of the technical staff.