[The HBs antigen carriage in blood donors of French Polynesia A new antigenic sub-type (author's transl)].

In the blood transfusion center of Papeete )Tahiti Island), a survey on HBs antigen has been made in 5 406 blood donors by reverse hemagglutination method. Its shown 2,53 p. 100 of carriers. In european donors recently arrived in the territory, the rate of carrier state is 0,27 p. 100 versus 3,01 in the autochtonous donors. From this point of view, the situation of Polynesia is better than that prevailing in some of the suroundings territories but worse than in developped countries. French Polynesia is too extended and too heterogenous to permit an extrapolation of our data to the whole territory. Anyway, the study of the geographical origin of the carriers, if compared to that of the donors, gives evidence that the prevalence of HBs antigen carriage is higher in remote archipelagos than in Tahiti. The research of subtypes of HBs antigen shown the presence of a new subtype adr q negative which seems very particular to South Pacific.. In french Polynesia it seems localized to some archipelagos. In addition, the frequence and preponderance of adw4 subtype in other archipelagos have been compiled. The data collected lead to ethnological hypothesis. More extensive epidemiological studies appear necessary to precise the frequency of HBs antigen carriage-state and the subtypes distribution in the various archipelagos of the territory.