The prevalence of HBsAg among pregnant women referred to Kerman maternity hospitals in 1997

Hepatitis B virus(HBV) is potentialy ba serious and lethal oathogen causing a wide range of diseases such as :fulminant hepatitis,cirrhisis,chronic active hepatitis,and hepatocellular carcinoma.moreover 5-10% of infected adults and 70-90% of infected neonates become chronic carriers,and these carriers are the source of spreading the infection among healthy individuals.the transmission of HBV from infected pregnant women to their newborns is the most significant one.in this study the prevalence of positive HBsAg cases in pregnant women referred to Kerman maternity hospitals has been investigated.A total of 1002 pregnant women were selected by continuos convenient sampling method and their blood samples were analysed by ELISA method for HBsAg,of which 23(2.3%) were HBsAg positive.the average of the patients age was 26.5 year,the mean gravidity was 2.67 and the mean parity and abortion were 2.13 and 0.29 respectively,however no significant differnce in this regard was observed between HBsAg positive and HBsAg negative group.the average weight of newborns was 3225 gr with no significant difference between the two groups.the prevalence of HBsAg positive in teachers(8.04%) was significantly higher than that of houswives (1.9%) and employees(0.9%)(p<0.00078).there was also no significant relation between the result of HBsAg test pregnant women and their husbands, job,history of previous blood transfusion,jundice,vaccination against hepatitis B and history of previous operation.