Seroprevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen among pregnant women in a tertiary care health center of North India

Abstract

Objective: To establish the rate of seroprevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen among pregnant women in tertiary care health centre of North India. Materials and methods: We included 2058 antenatal women attending the antenatal opd in our hospital S.N. Medical college Agra from January 2015 to 2016. All pregnant women attending antenatal OPD at their first antenatal visit were screened for HBsAg and verbally informed regarding study. Results: A total of 42 women had positive HBsAg results. The mean age was 25.7 years, average parity of 2.3. All the 42 women positive for HBsAg were advised for HBeAg testing. And among these four were tested positive for HBeAg. There were no statistically signi ficant association between sociodemo-graphic characterstics evaluated age , gravidity, marital status and educational level and HBsAg status. In our study out of 42 HBsAg positive women two were found to be equally infected with HIV this implies the coinfection rate in our study was 0.09%. The association between HIV and HBsAg was not statistically significant in our study. Conclusion: Hepatits B remains a significant health problem in India. Programmes for prevention and control of hepatitis B should represents a priority for the government and health services in India. The first step in tackling the HBV disease burden in India is to have a more accurate assessment of the burden of the disease. This is possible with multicentric population based studies.