DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2020.v08i03.002

Pages: 775-782

This study was designed to determine the prevalence of hepatitis B virus carriers among voluntary blood donors in some parts of Nigeria. A total of 183 blood samples were collected from subjects in North Central and consisted of 137 males and 46 females; 176 blood samples were collected from subjects in North East and consisted of 129 males and 47 females, while 173 blood samples were collected from subjects in South-South region and consisted of 123 males and 50 females. The mean age of the study population were 34.89±9.19years, 39.81± 9.60 years and 39.92 ± 9.27 year in North Central, North East and South-South regions respectively The specimens were tested for hepatitis B surface antigen, Hepatitis C and HIV to rule out co-infection with hepatitis, using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The results were analyzed using statistical analysis system (SAS STAT 15.1) and p-values < 0.05 were considered significant. Overall, the percentage prevalence of HBsAg negative by gender was 63.16% for males and 23.87% for the females while the prevalence of HBsAg positive by gender was 9.96% for the males and 3.01% for the females. The percentage prevalence of HBsAg negative irrespective of sex for the three zones combined was 87.03% while the percentage prevalence of HBsAg positive was 12.97%. The distribution of viral load shows that North Central zone has a viral load of 31.8439+12.784 IU/mol x 104 for male subjects and 0.3378+28.008 IU/mol x 104 for the female sugjects while in the North East zone, mean viral load values were 0.3454+16.171 IU/mol x 104 and 0.0561+28.008 IU/mol x 104 for the male and female subjects respectively. The mean viral load values for male and female subjects from the South South zone were 0.7583+16.738 IU/mol x 104 and 0.7976+25.568 IU/mol x 104 respectively. These findings indicate the percentage of asymptomatic hepatitis B virus carriers in the population is high impying that progression of these carriers into the full hepatitis B infection.....