Marked reduction in the incidence of transfusion-transmitted hepatitis B virus infection after the introduction of antibody to hepatitis B core antigen and individual donation nucleic acid amplification screening in Japan.

The incidence of observed TT-HBV cases has significantly reduced to 0.19 per million in the ID-NAT screening period. OBI-related TT-HBV was eliminated by anti-HBc screening. Established TT-HBV cases were caused by blood products with large plasma volumes containing extremely low HBV concentrations derived from blood donors at a very early infection stage.