proportion of people who are positive for hbsag and anti-hcv antibody among participants in a community screening campaign in malaysia

Background: the epidemiology of hepatitis b (hbv) and c (hcv) remains poorly documented in malaysia. available statistics are based on data from mostly small studies in special populations. objectives: in this study, we provide estimates of the proportion of people who are positive for hbs antigen (hbsag) and anti-hcv antibody (ab) among participants in a community screening campaign. methods: a total of 10,914 subjects participated in the hepatitis screening campaign organized by hepatitis free pahang in 2018 and 2019. a low-cost point-of-care test, which has previously been validated, was used to screen for hbsag and anti-hcv ab. all screened positive subjects were recalled to undergo confirmatory serologic tests (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) and nucleic acid tests (real-time polymerase chain reaction. results: we estimated that 1.17% of adults aged 20 or older who participated in the screening campaign were positive for hbsag +, and only 0.71 percent were positive for anti-hcv ab +. young adults below 30 years of age had a very low proportion of hbsag +(0.09%). women had a lower proportion of hbsag +and hcv- ab +, chinese had the highest proportion of hbsag +, while malay had the highest proportion of anti-hcv ab +. conclusions: among adult participants of screening in malaysia, chronic hbv is still common, especially among older and chinese people. adults with positive anti-hcv abs are much less common.