Abstract:
Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) occurs worldwide with more than 2 billion people being infected at some time in their lives. Transmission of this virus from carrier mothers to babies can occur during perinatal period. This study was conducted to determine prevalence of HBV infection among pregnant women in Rea Sea State. The study was carried out during the period from April to July 2017.
A total of ninety one (n=91) pregnant women were enrolled in this study. Sociodemographic data including name, age, gestational stage, history of abortion and blood transfusion were collected by structured questionnaire. Blood specimen was collected from each pregnant women. Plasma separated by centrifugation at 3000 rpm for 5minutes. The plasma were analyzed for the presence of HBsAg using a commercially available enzyme -linked immune sorbent assay “ELISA”. The results showed that out of 91 women enrolled, only 3(3.3%) were positive, the positive cases,2 in their third trimester, and one in second trimester, two of these positives exposed to blood transfusion in at least one time in their life. While the rest 88(96.7%) were negative.
The study concluded that the seroprevalence of Hepatitis B virus among pregnant women in Red Sea State was low. Pregnant women in third trimester had the highest frequency of infection followed by second one.
Further studies with large sample size and advanced technique are required to validate the results of the study.
