Aims: As community based studies of seroprevalence of Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV in Kashmir valley are lacking, the current analysis was aimed to look for the same in replacement blood donors in SMHS Hospital, an associated hospital of Govt. Medical College Srinagar, Kashmir. Material and Method: Relevant information of all the replacement blood donors who had donated whole blood in the department of transfusion medicine, SMHS Hospital, Kashmir from Jan 2000 to Oct 2010 was retrieved from the departmental records. The number of donors who were found positive for HBSAg, HIV and also those found reactive for anti HCV antibodies was calculated. Results: Out of 40616 total blood donors, 40584 were males and only 32 were females. Among all these replacement donors, 0.485 %( n=197) were HBSAg positive, 0.169% (n=69) were reactive for Anti HCV and 0.041% (n=17) were positive for HIV. Since the number of female donors was very less, over all prevalence was calculated and no comparison among sexes was made. HBV and HCV positive cases were seen to have an increased trend while HIV showed a decreased trend towards the end. Conclusion: Seroprevalence of HBV, HCV and HIV though is low in our setup compared to other states but still they are a potential threat to the recipients of the blood as well as to the community and thus stringent measures need to be taken to prevent the transmission of these infections among blood recipients and society as a whole. As replacement donors are not professional blood donors and grossly represent the community, this analysis as such may give us a rough idea about the real prevalence of these infections in our community in absence of the community based epidemiological studies and guide us in carrying out the same in future to estimate the actual prevalence and thus the disease burden in our community.
