Assessment of the Prevalence of Hepatitis B Virus Infection among people living with HIV visiting a Tertiary Health Institution in Edo State

Abstract

Coinfection of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a global public health problem, with a more severe outcome than HBV or HIV mono-infections, including an increased risk for liver-related morbidity and mortality. This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of HBV among people living with HIV attending Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Irrua, Edo State. A total of 250 samples each collected from different HIV subjects attending the antiretroviral clinic of the hospital were used for this study. Information regarding age, gender, occupation and marital status were obtained from the hospital register. The samples were analysed for HBV with standard laboratory techniques using serological test strips for preliminary diagnosis and HBV Diagnostic Test Strip (Colloidal Gold) for determination of the level of infectivity. The overall prevalence of HBV coinfection was 4%. The prevalence of the co-infection varied significantly (p≤0.05) with age, with the highest prevalence recorded among respondents 20-30years age range (26.7%), followed by >50years (6.7%) and 41-50 years (4%), while no prevalence was reported in those aged 0-19yrs. Females (7%) had a higher prevalence of co-infection than Males (3.8%) but this was statistically not significant (p>0.05). Based on marital status, the prevalence of co-infection was higher among the married (4.3%) than the singles (3.6%), but this difference was insignificant (p>0.05). There was also no significant variation (p>0.05) of co-infection with occupation, but farmers (5%) had the highest prevalence compared to other occupations in the studied population. In conclusion, this study found that the prevalence of HBV co-infection among the subjects was low (4%), but varied significantly with age, while there was no significant variation with gender, marital status and occupation. It was in this study, that there was a there was a low level of infectivity of HBV/HIV co-infection among respondents with chronic cases (0.8%) and acute cases (3.2%). Despite this low prevalence there is still the need for all concerned actors such as individuals, governmental and nongovernmental organisations to engage in practices to further reduce this prevalence and public awareness should be enforced especially to those who have little to no educational background on HIV/HBV co-infection.