Hepatitis B Infection

Hepatitis B infection is one of the major public health problems globally and is the tenth leading cause of death. Worldwide, more than two billion of the population have evidence of past or recent HBV infection and there are more than 350 million chronic carriers of this infection. In India, HBsAg prevalence among the general population ranges from 2 to 8%, which places India in an intermediate endemic zone for HBV. Occupational exposure of HBV is a well recognized risk for health care workers (HCWs). Throughout the world, millions of healthcare professionals work in health institutions and it is estimated that 600,000 to 800,000 cut and puncture injuries occur among them per year, of which approximately 50% are not registered [3]. According to WHO, the proportion of health-care workers in the general population varied substantially by region (0.2%-2.5%), as did the average number of injuries per health-care worker (0.2-4.7 sharps injuries per year). The annual proportion of health-care workers exposed to blood-borne pathogens was 5.9% for HBV, corresponding to about 66,000 HBV infections in health-care workers worldwide. Prevalence of Hepatitis B Virus Infection in Healthcare Workers of a Tertiary Care Centre in India and Their Vaccination Status: Varsha Singhal, Dhrubajyoti Bora and Sarman Singh

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Last date updated on April, 2024