The prevalence of hepatitis B antigen-positivity in the general population of Mashhad, Iran

Background: hepatitis b virus (hbv) infection is a significant health problem throughout the world.objectives: we aimed to evaluate the prevalence of hepatitis b antigen (hbsag) seropositivity in the general population of mashhad, northeast of iran.patients and methods: one thousand six hundred fifty-two healthy individuals aged 1 to 90 (mean; 29.1 ± 18.5) from all 12 municipalities of mashad were selected randomly by multistage cluster sampling. informed consent was obtained, and demographics and medical histories were collected. twice-reactive samples were considered hbsagpositive by elisa. chi-square test and logistic regression were applied to analyze the factors related to hbsag positivity using spss 16.0. results: the overall prevalence of hbsag positivity was 1.39% (95% ci, 0.91% to 2.12%); 2.0% and 0.89% among men and women, respectively (p = 0.054). infection was more prevalent in older (p = 0.019) and married persons (p = 0.001), afghanis (p = 0.046), and those with a history of traditional cupping (p = 0.005). there was no association between hbv infection and gender; literacy; income; employment; family size; or history of blood transfusion, dental procedure, surgery, hospitalization, or tattooing. by logistic regression analysis, age was the only variable that had a significant association with infection (p = 0.026). conclusion: it seems that the prevalence of hbv infection in mashhad is slightly lower than that of the nation.