Prevalence of blood borne diseases (hepatitis B & C) and strategy to protect health care workers

Objective: to determine the prevalence of blood borne infections particularly hepatitis b and c in our hospital and devise a strategy to protect health care workers from these infections. study design: it is a descriptive study. place & duration of study: we conducted study at akhtar saeed trust teaching hospital,attached with akhtar saeed medical and dental college,lahore for eight months from april to november 2011. methods: the study targeted the low to middle socioeconomic group that comprises 80% to 85% of the population. all the patients were analyzed by elisa for detection of hepatitis b surface antigen and hepatitis c virus. results: total 1891 subjects were screened for hepatitis b and c viruses. out of 1891 subjects,340(17.9%) were positive either for hepatitis b or c viruses. out of these,27(7.94%) were positive for hbsag,309(90.8%) were anti hcv positive and 4 were both hepatitis b & c positive (1.17%). 125(36.76%) were males and 215(63.24%) were females. female to male ratio is 1.7:1. the age range was 12-90 years,and majority of patients were between 40-49 years,followed by 20-29 yrs age group. conclusion: higher prevalence of hcv than hbv infection,highlighting an alarming situation of female preponderance than males.