Prevalência de marcadores sorológicos e moleculares do vírus da hepatite B em gestantes do Estado do Amazonas, Brasil

Abstract

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection represents a serious health problem in Brazil´s Amazon basin, where early exposure during childhood occurs in areas with highest endemnicity. With an aim to contribute to the regional policies for HBV control in this region, a survey was conducted to determine the prevalence of serologic and molecular HBV markers among 1,460 pregnant women who attended prenatal health-care in nine sub-regions of Amazonas State (Brazil). In these sub-regions, the prevalence of HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) ranged from 0% to 8.7%, the prevalence of antibodies to HBV core antigen (anti-HBc) ranged from 5.3 to 75.9% and of antibodies to HBV surface antigen (anti-HBs) from 10.6 to 73.4%. Among 46 HBsAg-positive women, 36 (78.3%) were reactive for HBV-DNA using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR). HBV-DNA load was less than 1x103 copies/ml in 73.9%, but 8.7% had more than 1x105 copies/ml, indicating active infection. The results show some sub-regions of Amazonas State have a high prevalence of HBV markers in pregnant women and, although most of them have low levels of viremia, some women pose potential risk of mother-to-child transmission due to their high viral load.