Prevalence of Hepatitis B surface Antigen in Pregnant Women

Abstract

Abstract:"Hepatitis" signifies liver inflammation. Overwhelming use of alcohol, medicines, toxins and certain ailments can cause hepatitis. However, hepatitis is mostly caused by virus. HBV is the aetiological mean of acute and chronic hepatitis B (CHB) in people. HBV invade and expand generally in hepatocytes (liver cells). The high risk of infection and death throughout pregnancy has been the thought of pregnancy as an immune-suppressed situation. Hormonal changes such as Estrogen, prolactin, progesterone, a-fetoprotein, Human chorionic gonadotropin, a-globulin and corticosteroids have been appeared to have immunosuppressive impacts during in vitro studies Objective: This study is conducted to find out the prevalence of Hepatitis B surface Antigen (HBsAg) among pregnant women referred to Government Teaching hospital shadara (G.T.H.S) from September 2018 to March 2019.Methods: This descriptive study was carried out on 1004 pregnant women, hospitalized in G.T.H.S. 5 ml blood was taken from each patient in clotted vial and after separation of serum; HBsAg was examined by the simple screening (ICT) device method and also by ELISA method by using ichromα^TM instrument.Results: From 1004 pregnant women only 126 (13%) pregnant women were HBsAg positive and 878 (87%) pregnant women were HBsAg negative. Age group 26-30 years showed highest prevalence of HBsAg and age group 15-20 years and 40-45 years pregnant women had lowest prevalence of HBsAg.Conclusions: In this study, 13% of pregnant women were HBsAg positive, which was slightly higher than the previous studies. Ministry of health should need to reduce the prevalence of HBsAg in pregnant women and make sure the early screening of HBsAg and make sure the vaccination of newborn babies which are infected with HBsAg.