Abstract:
Background: Hepatitis B (HBV) and C (HCV) viruses are frequent causes of chronic
liver disease (CLD) worldwide. It is estimated that one third of the world’s population
is infected with Hepatitis B virus (HBV) and more than 350 million have chronic
infection resulting in 1.2 million deaths yearly. About 170 million persons have
chronic Hepatitis C viral infection and 3-4 million new infections occur each year.
Both viruses cause chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma
which have high morbidity and mortality.
The prevalence of HBV is high in low-resource countries and Kenya is in the high
endemic zone with a prevalence of more than 8%. There is need to establish the
contributions of these infections to CLD for setting public health of priorities and
guiding prevention programmes.
Objective: To determine the seroprevalence of HBV and HCV among adult patients
with chronic liver disease attending Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH),
Eldoret, Kenya.
Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted among patients with
chronic liver disease attending MTRH Medical wards, Liver and Oncology outpatient
clinics. Their socio-demographic and risk characteristics were recorded. Blood was
tested for markers of HBV and HCV using direct ERBA LISA Hepatitis B and ERBA
LISA Hepatitis C ELISA kits respectively. HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus)
status of the participants was obtained from their charts. Data was analyzed using
STATA Version 13 SE to determine the prevalence of HBV and HCV among the
study participants.
Results: Between December 2013 and January 2015, 95 patients were screened out
of whom 84 participants were enrolled into the study. Their mean age was 45 ± 14
years with a range of 18 to 81years. Majority of the participants, 64 (76%) were
males. Fifty eight percent (58%) of the participants had history of harmful alcohol
use. The prevalence of HBV was 44 %. None of the participants was infected with
HCV. All the participants had not been immunized against HBV. Possible horizontal
modes of HBV transmission were reported in low frequencies hence majority of the
HBV-infected participants could have acquired it vertically. Seventeen percent (17%)
of the participants had HIV infection and 8% were co-infected with HIV and HBV.
Conclusion: Almost half of patients with CLD at MTRH have HBV infection. In this
cohort of CLD patients, none had HCV infection.
Recommendation: Preventive measures should be scaled up to reduce HBV
infection and its complications such as CLD.
