Prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen in pregnant women in Beheshti Hospital of Kashan, Isfahan

Abstract EN

Background : The transmission of hepatitis B virus (HBV) is parenteral, sexual and prenatal.

Prevention of vertical transmission of HBV is extremely important, because HBV infection in early life usually results in a chronic carrier state.

There has been so much debate about hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) screening in pregnant women.

Objectives : The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of HBsAg+ among pregnant women referred to Beheshti hospital in Kashan in 2012.

Patients and Methods : This descriptive study was carried out on 768 pregnant women, hospitalized in Beheshti Hospital of Kashan in 2012.

After obtaining consent forms, the questionnaires including demographic and HBV infection-associated risk factors were filled through interview and then 5 mL blood was taken from each patient and HBsAg was examined by the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method.

These data were analyzed by statistical package for the social science (SPSS) software.

Results : A total of 12 (1.56%) out of 768 pregnant women were HBsAg+.

The mean age of HBsAg+ cases was 24.5 ± 4 years.

Most of the HBsAg+ cases (66.6%) were uneducated; 17.7% of the pregnant women were not Iranian, of which 7.4% were HBsAg+.

There was no high-risk job, recent dentistry interruption or skin tattoo among the HBsAg+ cases.

Conclusions: In this study, 1.56% of pregnant women were HBsAg+, which was higher than the previous studies.

This increasing prevalence may be due to the increase of non-Iranians’ migrations to Iran.

Control of migration and screening and vaccination of these groups should be considered by health policy makers.