Original Articles
Seroprevalence of hepatitis B and hepatitis C viruses among patients in a tertiary care hospital of North India India: A hospital based retrospective study | |
Dr. Zarrin Afroz, Dr. Bithika Ray | |
Background: Over 240 million people worldwide have chronic hepatitis B infection, while 150 million have chronic hepatitis C infection, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). This study was conducted to ascertain the prevalence of parenterally transmitted hepatotropic viruses Hepatitis B virus and Hepatitis C virus among patients presenting with acute viral hepatitis (AVH), as there is a dearth of information regarding the seroprevalence of viral hepatitis in North India. Methods: This retrospective observational study was conducted over the period of six months (August 2022 to February 2023) at GS medical college & hospital in north India by the department of microbiology. The study gathered data from patients who presented with acute viral hepatitis and whose samples were sent to a microbiology lab for hepatitis B and C screening and were found to be positive for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) or antibodies to hepatitis C (Anti-HCV) over a 4-year period (January 2019 to December 2022).The collected data was entered in the MS excel sheet. Frequency and percentages were used to summarise the categorical variables. Results: In our study, a total of 57869 patients were screened for Hepatitis B and 43518 patients were screened for Hepatitis C during period of 4 years. The overall prevalence of Hepatitis B during those 4 years was 2.27% and that of Hepatitis C was 0.73%.The age wise analysis of prevalence of Hepatitis B and C showed that the prevalence was highest in the age group of 36-50 years. In our study, the further analysis of prevalence of Hepatitis C for comparison of prevalence on the basis of age group and gender, it was observed that among female, the prevalence was highest in the 36-50 years of age group (0.83%), and was lowest in the age group of <20 years (0.39%), but for the males, the prevalence was highest in the 36-50 years of age group (1.30%), and was lowest in the age group of <20 years (0.39%) and it was statistically significant (p=0.017). Conclusion: Although it is well known that prevention is preferable to treatment, efforts should be undertaken to lower the prevalence of Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C by straightforward preventative measures such public education, blood and blood product screenings, and raising awareness of the value of immunization. |
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