Seroprevalance of Hepatitis B Patients Attending a Tertiary Care Hospital Of Jharkhand, India

Hepatitis B is a major public health problem worldwide. Nearly 2 billion people—one-third of the world’s population—alive today have been infected with HBV at some time in their life, of which about 350 million remain infected. Studying the prevalence of HBV infection in tertiary care centre / teaching hospital based study of Hepatitis B surface antigen is a strong indicator of true HBV infection rate in the community as patients of diverse backgrounds attend the hospital and aids in establishing the magnitude of problem and efficacy of vaccine coverage. The study aimed to determine the seroprevalence of hepatitis B virus infections in Jharkhand. The study was conducted at Indian Council Medical Research Grade II Viral Diagnostic Laboratory, Department Of Microbiology, Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences, Ranchi, Jharkhand from January 2014 to December 2014, including 19607 patients. Test methods employed was chemiluminescence. Hepatitis B surface antigen seroprevalance was 2.45% patients with high percent (3.41%) positives in males as compared to females (1.31%). HBV prevalence is of intermediate range. Males are at relatively higher risk as compared to females. Lower and higher age group is at low risk of exposure as compared to intermediate age group. .Proper preventive measures in these areas need to be scaled up likes vaccination and screening of the patients.