Hepatitis C; prevalence in paramedical staff of a teaching hospital

ABSTRACT

Hepatitis C is RNA virus isolated in 1988 but still no cultured in the laboratory. Hepatitis-C infection is a serious global public health issue, WHO estimates worlds 3% population is HCV positive. Pakistan is also facing the huge burden of this disease. Accurate prevalence information for hepatitis C infection is scant in Pakistan. Few population based studies are available, the most comprehensive being that of Luby et al which after testing a representative sample from a population of 150,000 in Hafizabad, Pakistan found an overall sero-prevalence of 6%. This increased to 30% with increasing age. They also found sero-prevalence of 16% in household members of HCV infected cases. Aslam et al reported a population prevalence of 16% from Lahore and 23.8% in Gujranwala. In our study published in Medical Forum showed prevalence of HCV antibodies in population attending our department of ophthalmology is 27.06%. There is no data from Pakistan about prevalence of hepatitis C in Paramedical staff. It appears that paramedical staff is at higher risk of contracting this infection as they are exposed to multiple risk factors like needle stick injuries. Little is known about the prevalence of Hepatitis C in this group of population. The objective of our study was to assess the perceived increased incidence of Hepatitis C in this group of population. The objective of our study was to assess the perceived increased incidence of Hepatitis C in this group of population. This is a retrospective audit of the data from the records kept by clinical laboratory on University Medical College, Faisalabad. All paramedical staff members were invited for HCV Antibody test on 13.1.2007 to 20.12007. Any staff member working in those days was included in the study. Persons on holidays or did not give free informed consent was excluded from the study. Serum of blood samples were analyzed by EXCEL a one step device for the qualitative detection of antibodies to Hepatitis C virus in serum or plasma by trained professional. This test has a relative sensitivity of 96.8%, relative specificity 99% and accuracy 98.9% as compared to HCV EIA test, Statistical analysis was performed by SPSS system. A total 80 staff members were working in the hospital at that time, 61 attended for the test [F31,M30]. We found 7 [11.4%] were HCV positive and 54 [88.52%] were HCV negative including 2 weekly positive. Among HCV positive 4 [6.55%] were male and 3 [4.91%] were females. Age distribution was 17-75 years with mean age 32.51 years. Among HCV positive 3 were analyzed by ELISA technique. 2 weekly positive by EXCEL were negative by ELISA and 1 positive by EXCEL was positive by ELISA. Paramedical staff is perhaps not at higher risk of contracting HCV infection. However more studies are required to further assess this finding: