Prevalence of hepatitis B virus infection among blood donors at the Tamale Teaching Hospital, Ghana (2009)

Abstract

BackgroundDespite education and availability of drugs and vaccines, hepatitis B virus (HBV) is still the most common severe liver infection in the world accounting for >1 million annual deaths worldwide. Transfusion of infected blood, unprotected sex and mother to child transmission are 3 key transmission routes of HBV in Ghana. There is high incidence of blood demanding health situations in northern Ghana resulting from anemia, accidents, malnutrition, etc. The higher the demand, the higher the possibility of transmitting HBV through infected blood. The aim of the investigation was to estimate the prevalence of HBV in blood donors which will provide justification for interventions that will help minimize or eliminate HBV infection in Ghana.FindingsWe investigated the prevalence of HBV infection among blood donors at Tamale Teaching Hospital. The Wondfo HBsAg test kit was used to determine the concentration of HBsAg in 6,462 (576 voluntary and 5,878 replacement) donors as being ≥1 ng/ml. 10.79% of voluntary donors and 11.59% of replacement donors were HBsAg+. The 20-29 year group of voluntary donors was >2 times more likely to be HBsAg + than 40-60. Also the 20-29 year category of replacement donors was >4 times as likely to be HBsAg + than 50-69.ConclusionsRisk of infection was age, sex and donor type dependent. The 20-29 year category had the highest prevalence of HBsAg + cases, mostly males residing within the metropolis.

Prevalence of HBs Ag among blood donors in Transfusion Center, Abidjan (Ivory Coast)

“…The prevalence of HBsAg in our study was also lower than that reported in the study Matee [6] and several others made in sub-Saharan Africa (Table 3) [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. The difference is, in addition to the elimination of donors with risk factors for hepatitis B virus, the only character voluntary and free blood donation in Côte d'Ivoire.…”

“…And some like ours the age of 30 years were most at risk [6,9,18]. For others it may concerned rather younger subjects (under 30 years) without a clear explanation have been established [11,14,20].…”

“…The difference is, in addition to the elimination of donors with risk factors for hepatitis B virus, the only character voluntary and free blood donation in Côte d'Ivoire. Several authors have shown that voluntary donors were less often compared with HBsAg positive donors paid or replacement donors [6,12,19,20]. The existence of risk factors for hepatitis B is associated with a higher prevalence of HBsAg [6,17].…”

Sero-Prevalence of Hepatitis B Virus Infection among Blood Donors: A Retrospective Study in the Kintampo Municipal Hospital, Ghana

“…There are reports on the huge variation in gender participation in blood donation exercise [26] [27]. Generally, males donate blood more often than females, particularly in developing countries [28].…”

Hepatitis B virus surface antigen and antibody markers in children at a major paediatric hospital after the pentavalent DTP-HBV-Hib vaccination

“…In the absence of an institutionalized birth dose, there is the need to monitor current vaccination programs for sero-protection rates and HBsAg carriage to estimate residual infections in our hyper endemic environment where prevalence rates are around 10% in different populations. [22][23][24][25] This study therefore reports the levels of immunity to HBV among children who received the DPT-HepB-Hib vaccine and HBsAg carriage in those who did not seroconvert to anti-HBs (non-responders). Since immune recognition can wane 8 , the factors that determine high (100 mIU/ml) anti-HBs titres were also determined.…”