Seroprevalence of Hepatitis B Virus among Human Immunodeficiency Virus patients attending tertiary and secondary health facilities in Benin City Nigeria.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic has changed the prevalence of some infectious diseases. Hepatitis B is a very important potentially lethal and presently treatable infection which affects the course of HIV disease. This study was carried out to determine the prevalence of hepatitis B virus [HBV] infection in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected patents undergoing treatment in two major hospitals in Edo state over a 12 month period. All HIV infected persons aged 15 years and above of either gender seen between 1st January and 31st December 2002 in the University of Benin Teaching hospital and central Hospital Benin City were included in this study. A total of 204 HIV infected patients [81males, 123 females] seen over this period were screened for HbsAg. HIV infection was confirmed using the double ELISA technique. One hundred and sixty six [66 males and 100 females] age and sex matched HIV negative patients recruited from the general outpatients clinic of those hospitals formed the control group. The mean age of HIV infected patients was 37.14 ±10.94 with a range of 15-70. The two groups compared well as regards age, sex, occupation and social class. However, widows has significantly higher prevalence amongst the HIV patients. Seventy one percent [71%] of the HIV patients were symptomatic. The prevalence of HBV amongst the HIV infected patients was 10.75% as compared to 7.2% in the control [P> 0.05]. This was however not statistically significant. This study showed that though the prevalence of Hepatitis B infection is higher in HIV infected patients, this difference is however, not statistically significant from that in HIV negative controls