seroprevalence of hepatitis e virus among injection drug users and non-injection drug users in hamadan, west of iran

Hepatitis e virus (hev) infection is a self-limited hepatitis and the most common cause of acute adult hepatitis in asia. young adults and middle-aged populations are more likely to be infected than other age groups. the aim of this study was to determine the seroprevalence of anti-hev among injection drug users (idus) compared to non-idus. this was a cross-sectional study performed on 131 idus referred to farshchian hospital, hamadan, iran and 131 non-idus selected from healthy visitors between march 2011 and march 2012. anti-hev igg was measured in serum by elisa method (diapro, milan, italy). data including age, gender, education, location and duration of injection drug used were collected using a questionnaire. in this study, the seroprevalence of hepatitis e virus antibody among idus group was 6.1%, and 1.5% among non-idu group (odds ratio = 5.48; ci = 1/069-22/84), indicating that injection drug users were almost five and a half times more than non-idus at risk of hev infection (p = 0.053). there was no significant association between seroprevalence of hepatitis e virus and education level (p = 0.46), duration of injection (p = 0.38) and location (p = 0.19). seroprevalence of hepatitis e virus among idus group was higher than non-idu group, which might be due to possible blood transmission of hev among idus.