Outbreaks of hepatitis A in Poland are often connected with other infections

Abstract

Introduction: The amount of reported hepatitis A cases in Europe increased significantly in 2017. The main cause of the latest outbreak is transmission by faecal-oral contact during sexual activity, mostly among men who have sex with men (MSM). The aim was to analyze the main co-infections in adult patients with hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection. Material and methods: We analyzed the records of 55 patients with HAV infection. In studied group, we evaluated gender, age, duration of hospitalization, blood cell count, activity of liver enzymes, total bilirubin, international normalized ratio (INR), and serologic tests for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and syphilis. Results: Ninety five percent of analyzed patients were male, from whom almost 70% were MSM. The median age was 31 years. The median duration of hospitalization was 6 days. Serological tests for other infections were positive for HIV in 11 patients (11/53; 20.75%), for HBV in 3 patients (3/53; 5.66%) and for syphilis for 2 patients (2/33; 6.06%). None of the 52 tested patients were HCV positive. Conclusion: The study showed that HAV infection among young MSM often co-exist with other sexually transmitted diseases: syphilis, hepatitis B and HIV infection.