الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Worldwide hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a senous public health problem and a major cause of chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). It was estimated that approximately 2 billion people have serological evidence of past or present HBV infection. More than 350 million are chronic carriers of HBV and the prevalence of HBV infection is decreasing nowadays due to better awareness of health care providers as well as the people to the route of transmission and the role of vaccination. Like other countries in the Middle East, Egypt is known to be a country of intermediate endemicity for HBV. However, many studies showed that the prevalence of HBsAg ranged from 3% to 11 % in this country. Therefore, studying the prevalence of HBV infection within the family members of index cases could enable identification of the risk factors and activities related to infection and help health care decision makers to put strategies to decrease infection either by health education, prOVISIOn of vaccination or enabling obligatory screening for sexually transmitted diseases before marnage or during pregnancy. This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out on fifty five Index cases with HBs antigenemia attending the out- patient clinic of Communicable Diseases Research & Training Center and 233 of their family members. The study was conducted from September 2007 to June 2008 in the Communicable Disease Research and Training Center Suez Canal University in Suez City. |