| Summary: | <p><strong>Background:</strong> Many African countries lack an adequate supply of safe blood and have no reliable records on the prevalence of bloodborne infections. <br /><strong>Objectives: </strong>To characterize blood donation in a clinic in Luanda and to determine the cause of rejection of candidates to blood donation and the prevalence among them of infections to be researched. <br /><strong>Methods:</strong> A retrospective and descriptive study was conducted at the Multiprofile Clinic in Angola. We included 8 043 candidates to blood donation who performed this activity between 2005 and 2010. The variables analyzed were: type of donor, results of laboratory tests and donor’s assessment and causes of rejection. We applied the chi-square test to determine differences between the values of frequency, with a confidence interval of 95% (p <0.05). <strong><br />Results:</strong> 9.7% of donations were voluntary and the rest were provided by relatives. There were significant differences between the rates of rejection of candidates to donate by type of donation: 29.9% for relatives and 6.8% for volunteers. The most common cause of rejection was the positive result of the surface antigen test for hepatitis B both in relatives and in occasional volunteers. Among regular volunteers malaria and non-infectious causes prevailed. Differences in the prevalence of infections in different types of donors were demonstrated. <strong><br />Conclusions:</strong> The prevalence of infections that can be transmitted through blood is high. Volunteer donors present the lowest risk but they are also the smallest group of donors and the hardest to find.</p>
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