Prevalence of and risk factors for HBV and HCV among incarcerated people who inject drugs in Iran: A cross sectional study

Abstract

Background This study aimed at determining the prevalence of and risk factors for hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) among incarcerated people who inject drugs (PWID) in Iran in 2015–16. Methods The required data was collected from a database provided by Iranian national bio-behavioral surveillance surveys (BBSSs) on 11,988 prisoners selected from among 55 prisons in 19 provinces in 2015–16. The data on demographics and behavioral variables were collected through interviews and the status of exposure to HBV and HCV were determined using ELISA blood test. A total of 1387 individuals with a history of drug injection in their lifetime were enrolled into the study. Data were analyzed using the survey package in Stata/SE software, Version 14.0. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression tests were used to investigate the relationships between risk factors and outcomes. Results The mean age of the incarcerated PWID was 36.83 ± 8.13 years. Of all the studied subjects, 98.46% were male and 50.97% were married. The prevalence of HCV and HBV among the subjects were 40.52 and 2.46%, respectively. The prevalence of HCV was associated with age ≥ 30 years, being single, illiteracy and low level of education, prison term> 5 years, history of piercing, and extramarital sex in lifetime (P < 0.05). Conclusions The prevalence of HCV is alarmingly high. In general, it is recommended to adopt measures to screen and treat patients with HCV and vaccinat incarcerated PWID without a history of vaccination against HBV.

Hepatitis B and hepatitis C virus infections and associated factors among prisoners in Gondar City, Northwest Ethiopia

“…However, a study by Kassa et al suggests that old age is a risk factor for HBV infection [ 25 ]. Similarly, studies by Moradi et al and Puga et al show that old age was associated with higher HCV infection [ 52 , 57 ]. More than half of our study population was under 35 years might partly explain absence of significant association in this study.…”

Prevalence of and risk factors for HCV among incarcerated people at Great Tehran Prison: a cross-sectional study

“…Although the sample size was smaller in our study, in general, the trend of differences between age groups, education, prior imprisonment history and piercing history was similar to previous studies. Probably, such differences will be significant if we would be able to recruit a larger sample size (Moradi et al, 2018(Moradi et al, , 2020(Moradi et al, , 2019. In another study by Ghafari et al (2019), the prevalence and risk factors for hepatitis B and C were investigated in 300 prisoners of South Khorasan Province.…”

Stavovi i znanje zatvorenika o hepatitisu C

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