About NAT

NAT Lab (Nucleic Acid Testing)

1. What is NAT

• High prevalence of the viruses in the population.
• A significant number of window period donations can be identified by NAT.
• Detects the presence of pathogenic agents earlier than serologically-based methods.
• Prevent transfusion – transmission related infections (TTIs).

2. Advantages of NAT

• NAT was enforced in the Blood Centre system to ensure an additional layer of safety in the blood supply.
• It can detect acute viral infections during the ‘window period’, that are not detected by the serological screening methods.
• NAT detects the presence of viral infection by directly for viral nucleic acids.
• NAT shortens this window period, therebby offering blood centers a much higher sensitivity for detecting viral infections.