RESEARCH ARTICLE
High Prevalence of Hepatitis B Virus Infection in the Age Range of 20-39 Years Old Individuals in Lome
Malewe Kolou1, 2, *, Gnatoulma Katawa3, Mounerou Salou2, Komlan Selom Gozo-Akakpo3, Sika Dossim2, Alexander Kwarteng4, Mireille Prince-David2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2017Volume: 11
First Page: 1
Last Page: 7
Publisher Id: TOVJ-11-1
DOI: 10.2174/1874357901710011001
Article History:
Received Date: 15/12/2015Revision Received Date: 18/10/2016
Acceptance Date: 07/11/2016
Electronic publication date: 12/01/2017
Collection year: 2017
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background:
Hepatitis B is a liver infection caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV). It affects all women and men irrespective of age. Although sub-Saharan Africa is an area of high prevalence of this disease, data on the prevalence of acute and chronic HBV infections in this region remain to be widely documented.
Objective:
This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of HBV in relation to age in Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Campus (CHU-C), one of the two teaching hospitals of Lome, Togo.
Method:
The present study is a cross-sectional study about the prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) carriage from 2009 to 2011. All study participants were screened for HBsAg at the Immunology laboratory of CHU Campus of Lome.
Results:
One thousand two hundred individuals were screened for HBsAg from 2009-2011. The overall prevalence of HBV infection was 19.08%. This prevalence was significantly higher in men (25.00%) than women (14.80%). The highest prevalence of HBV was observed in age range of 20-29 years and 30-39 years with respectively 26.33% and 21.67%. The lowest prevalence was 6.08%, found in people over 50 years. Concerning the clinical indication of the test, the prevalence during the clinical abnormalities related to liver (CARL) was the highest (26.21%), followed by the systematic screening (SS) with 20.25% while the pre-operative assessment (POA) showed the lowest prevalence with 5.56%.
Conclusion:
The study shows the high prevalence of HBsAg carriage in young people. This could be used to enhance prevention and treatment of HBV infection in Togo.