Epidemiology of Hepatitis-B Infection among Pregnant Women in Yola North Local Government Area Adamawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

Hepatitis b virus infection presents major threat to public health throughout endemic countries of tropical and sub-Saharan Africa. There is a scarcity of data on HBV in Adamawa State, Nigeria. Hence, the objectives of this paper is to evaluate the epidemiology of hepatitis B infection among pregnant women in Yola North Local Government Area, Adamawa State Nigeria using Structured questionnaire to collect information from 1,254 pregnant women who come for antenatal clinic (ANC) for the first visit. Five (5) mL of blood samples were drown from each consented pregnant women for serological analysis by using rapid diagnostic test/ELISA. A pooled prevalence of 4.1% was recorded for HBV. Of all the sociodemographic characteristics studied, only occupation recorded a significant association with HBV (P=0.023) with highest prevalence among house wives (2.2%) and lowest among civil servants (0.6%). Also, considering the eight attitudes-related questions used to assess the participants, a good attitude of 73.9% toward HBV was reported. Three factors that recorded significant association with hepatitis b infection were; ever screened for HBV (AOR=0.349; 95% CI= 0.121-1.007; P=0.052), can be infected with HBV (AOR=0.107; 95% C.I =0.017-0.660; P=0.016) and people with HBV are discriminated in the society (AOR=3.071; 95% CI= 1.508-6.253; P=0.002). Therefore, awareness on modes of transmission, early detection and screening of HBV for all pregnant women attending ANC must be strengthened to minimize and control vertical transmission of the infections.