Hepatitis B Viral Load Monitoring Insight Across India: Needs Lucidity on Burden of Silent Killer

Asian Journal of Biological and Life Sciences,2021,10,2,413-420.
Published:September 2021
Type:Original Article
Authors:
Author(s) affiliations:

Chaitali Nikam1,*, Caesar Sengupta2, Praveenkumar Ganesan3

1Applied Biology Manager TB and PCR Laboratories, Thyrocare Technologies Limited, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, INDIA.

2General Manager, Thyrocare Technologies Limited, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, INDIA.

3Molecular Biology, Thyrocare Technologies Limited, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, INDIA.

Abstract:

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is one of the most serious infectious diseases that needs a critical attention in India. The current study aims to estimate the prevalence of the seropositive patients to assess the burden of the disease. Methods: Blood samples were collected from 14,440 individuals for the diagnosis of hepatitis B surface antigen using the real-time PCR quantification between July 2017 to July 2018. Results: The mean age of the participants is 36.9 ± 14.4 in years. In total, 9657 (67%) were found to be positive for HBV infection and positivity was higher in males than females (63% vs. 37%) (odds ratio (OR)=1.10;95% CI;1.031-1.189). The highest Hep B prevalence was 50.8% in adult (19-49 years) age group and the lowest were 0.2% in less than 6 year age. Conclusion: The adult population is most commonly affected and this raises the alarm to take stringent infection-control measures to prevent the spread of HBV infection in the population.