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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.