Frequency of Hepatitis C and Hepatitis B infection in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Objective: To determine the frequency of HCV and HBV in patients referred for screening at Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University, PIMS, Islamabad. Material and Methods: This retrospective study was conducted at the Pathology Department of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University, PIMS, Islamabad over duration of 3 months (from 1st January, 2014 to 31st December 2014). The data was analyzed with, Microsoft Excel 2010. Results: Total of 28319 (17040 + 11279) serum samples were tested by ELISA for HCV antibody and HBV antigen respectively. Among the positive samples, 3427 (12.1%) samples were found positive for HCV antibodies, while 843 (7.5%) were positive for HBV antigen. However, the number of samples testing positive for both HBV and HCV out of the total sample size of 28319 were 143 (0.5%). Conclusion: HCV has a higher seropositivity, being more prevalent in females, effecting mostly patients between the ages of 36 years to 46 years compared to HBV that has a lower seropositivity, effecting mostly females with highest number of samples recorded between the ages of 25 years to 35 years. However, it should be kept in mind that these are patients and not healthy donors/ or population.