Seroprevalence of syphilis antibodies among blood donors at North Darfur State–Sudan, from 2017 to 2019

Background: syphilis is one of the infections transmitted through blood transfusion as shown by high antibodies detection in healthy African blood. Syphilis prevalence among blood donors in sub-Saharan African countries varies among people; In Nigeria, Mali, Tanzania, and Kenya the prevalence was 3.1%, 0.3%, 12.8%, and 3.8% respectively. This study aimed to determine the seroprevalence of syphilis antibodies among blood donors at North Darfur State – Sudan, from 2017 to 2019. Methods: This retrospective descriptive analysis of consecutive blood donor’s data records covering the period from January 2017 to December 2019 was performed. The medical and socio-demographic histories of the donors were registered in the logbook. The data was analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistical package version 20. Prevalence of syphilis was expressed as the number of sero-positive samples per year. Pearson Chi-squire (χ2) test was used to evaluate the relationship between categorical variants. Ethical approval was obtained from Al Fashir University and Sudan Ministry of Health Ethical Review Boards. Results: A total of 14819 blood donors were analyzed. The overall sero-prevalence of syphilis antibodies between 2017 and 2019 were 1927 (13 %). They were all adult’s male, aged between 17 to 64 years, with a median age 29.5 years. The seroprevalence of syphilis was 10.9 % in 2017; increased to 13 % in 2018 and subsequently increased to 14.8 % in 2019. Conclusion: In This study it was observed that the seroprevalence of syphilis among blood donors continues high during the study period.