H Brahimi^1,3* and DJ Bacha²

¹Infectious Disease Department, University Hospital Center, Tlemcen, Algeria
²Infectious Disease Department, Ain Naadja Military Hospital, Algiers, Algeria
³Faculty of Medicine, University of Abu Bakr Belkaid, Tlemcen, Algeria

*Corresponding Author: H Brahimi, Infectious Disease Department, University Hospital Center, Tlemcen, Algeria.

Received: November 08, 2021; Published: December 13, 2021

Abstract

The epidemiology of viral hepatitis B in pregnancy is not precisely known in Algeria, although it is of primary importance to health planners and program managers. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of these infections in the population of pregnant women. This is a prospective longitudinal study carried out at the level of the mother-child specialized hospital and mother-child protection centers in the region of Tlemcen. This study lasted 30 months (January 2013 to June 2015), and recruited 2165 pregnant women. The seroprevalence of HBs Ag in pregnant women was 1.8%. The mean maternal age of HBs Ag positive patients was 30.38 ± 5.9 years, with the most affected age group of 30-39 years with 51.28%. There was no statistically significant association between age or socio-demographic factors (level of education, marital status, surgical procedures, previous hospitalization, previous transfusions, dental care, history of sexually transmitted infections or scarifications, gestational age) and HBs Ag status. On the other hand, other socio demographic factors such as parity (P = 0.014), professional activity (P = 0.031), history of jaundice (P = 0.014), mode of delivery (P = 0.012), piercing (P = 0.034), intravenous drug addiction (P = 0.005), vagrancy (P = 0.02), and family history of hepatitis B (P < 0.001) were associated with HBsAg carriage. Chronic mutant carriers (87.2%) vs. 12.8% chronic wild-type. These results encourage the screening of viral hepatitis B in pregnant women in order to prevent vertical transmission of this virus. These results encourage screening for viral hepatitis B in pregnant women in order to prevent vertical transmission of this virus.

Keywords: Viral Hepatitis B; Pregnancy; Prevalence; Risk Factors

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Citation

Citation: H Brahimi and DJ Bacha. “Viral Hepatitis B Seroprevalence Among Pregnant Women in Tlemcen”.Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 6.1 (2022): 134-139.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 H Brahimi and DJ Bacha. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.