Incidence of Hepatitis B Virus And Hepatitis C Virus among out Patients Attendingal-Ramadi Teaching Hospital and Al-Ramadi Teaching Hospital for Women and Children, Ramadi, Anbar, Iraq

Abstract

Even though a vaccine is available for viral Hepatitis, bothHBVand HCVinfection arestill as a community health problemglobally. High mortalityrate of Iraqi population during the last 20 years led to change the occurrence of this infection.The present study wasestablished to estimate the incidence of HBV and HCV among the Iraqi patients attending AL-Ramadi teaching hospital and Al-Ramadi teaching hospital for women and children, Ramadi city in Anbar Governorate, Iraq.In this cross-sectional study, 719 Iraqi patients attending AL-Ramadi teaching hospital and Al-Ramadi teaching hospital for women and children were included. These samples were verified for confirmation of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and HCV antibody (HCV-Ab).As a result, from thewhole of 719patients, 546 cases (75.94%) were positive for HBV, while 173 cases (24.06%) were positive for HCV. The highest number of infections was found in the age group of 25 – 50 years (392 cases), followed by 50 – 75 (183 cases), 10 – 25 (135 cases) and 0 – 10 (9 cases). The commonness rates of HBV among the out patientsare nearly threefold higher than that found in HCV out patients. This may put extra encumbrance on the Iraqi health institution.