Hepatitis B virus circulation in three different villages of Somalia

Abstract

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) circulation was surveyed in three Somalian villages (Buur-Fuul, Mooda-Moode and Bajuni Islands) in different districts and 52 children living in a closed community, aged under one year, were studied. Of the 331 village subjects aged one to 83 years, 12.08% were HBs positive, 29.9% anti-HBs positive, 43.8% anti-HBc positive and 21.4 anti-HBe positive. Among the HBs-positive subjects, 34.7% had HBeAg and 21.7% had anti-HBcAg-IgM. No statistically significant differences were found for HBs, anti-HBs, anti-HBc and anti-HBe among the three villages. HBeAg prevalence was higher in Buur-Fuul than in Mooda-Moode and in Bajuni Islands. HBsAg prevalence was about the same for each age group studied, whereas the prevalence of anti-HBc showed a continuous rise and reached its maximum level of 43.8% in those aged 39 years and older. The proportion of HBs-positive subjects who also carried HBeAg was high in the youngest children but fell with age. HBs-positive children aged under one year had a high anti-HBc-IgM prevalence. Our finding suggests that perinatal infection may play an important role among the Somalian population in determining the reservoir of virus carriers.

Ethiopian national hepatitis B study

“…Similar to other African countries [Greenfield et al, 1986;Windsor et al, 1984;Said et al, 1985;Gebreselassie, 1984;Coursaget et al, 1984;Ahmed et al, 1984;Werner et al, 1985;Sebastiani et al, 1985;Sherif, 1985;Khalfa and Ardjoun, 1984;Henriksen, 1984;Bowry, 1983;Prozesky et al, 1983;Gebreselassie, 1983a;Bowry, 19831 prevalence of hepatitis B markers is high among Ethiopians: by the age of 20 over 70% of the healthy young men are already positive to at least one marker, indicating that most of the infections occur at an earlier age. This feature of a common infection occurring early in life explains the high rate of liver cirrhosis and primary liver carcinoma observed in Ethiopia [Health Manpower Study: "Ethiopia"; The Ministry of Health, Addis Ababa Ethiopia, 1980; Lester and Tsega, 19761.…”

Epidemiology of viral hepatitis in Somalia: Systematic review and meta-analysis study

“…In 1985, a study conducted in three different villages of Somalia found that 12.08% (40/331) of subjects aged 1-83 years were HBsAg-positive, 29.9% were anti-HBs-positive, 43.8% were anti-HBc-positive, 21.4% were anti-HBe-positive, and the overall prevalence in this study was 12% (46/383) of subjects, including those under one year of age. Among the HBsAg-positive subjects, 34.7% were HBeAg-positive and 21.7% had anti-HBcAg-IgM[ 27 ]. A survey study in 1987 of HBV epidemiology was carried out among 383 adults from different areas of Somalia and in 135 pregnant women and 428 children from Mogadishu.…”

“…A total of six studies showed HBV prevalence rates between 0% to 16% among children[ 16 , 27 - 30 , 40 ]. See Table 5 .…”

Assessment of knowledge, attitude and practice of healthcare workers towards Hepatitis B virus infection in Mogadishu, Somalia: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…High prevalence of HBV infection was reported from various parts of Africa among different population groups [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Although there were some reports on the prevalence of HBV in Somalia in the past [14][15][16][17][18] there is limited recent literature on the prevalence of HBV infection in Somalia. The country is among the endemic areas with high prevalence of HBV infection [19].…”