College of Health and Medical Sciences, Haramaya University, Haramaya, Ethiopia.
Armauer Hansen Research Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Sci Rep. 2020 Dec 17;10(1):22182. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-79392-x.
The absence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and the presence of antibody to hepatitis B core antigen (anti-HBc) in the blood of apparently healthy individuals may not indicate the absence of circulating hepatitis B virus (HBV) and might be infectious. Despite the risk of HBV transmission, there has been no report from Ethiopia examining this issue; therefore, this study determined occult HBV infection (OBI) among isolated anti-HBc (IAHBc) HIV negative and HIV positive individuals on ART in eastern Ethiopia. A total of 306 IAHBc individuals were included in this study. DNA was extracted, amplified, and detected from plasma using a commercially available RealTime PCR platform (Abbott m2000rt) following the manufacturer's instructions. Data were entered into EPI Data version 3.1, cleaned, and analyzed using Stata version 13. Descriptive analysis was used to calculate prevalence, summarize sociodemographic data and other factors. From the 306 IAHBc individuals (184 HIV positive and 122 HIV negative) included in the study, 183 (59.8%) were female of which 142 (77.6%) were within the reproductive age group. DNA extraction, amplified and detection was conducted in 224 individuals. The overall OBI prevalence was 5.8% (5.6% in HIV negative and 6% in HIV positive) among the IAHBc individuals. The HBV DNA concentration among the occult hepatitis B individuals was < 200 IU/mL, indicating a true occult. This study reported the burden of OBI, which pauses a significant public health problem due to the high burden of HBV infection in the country. OBI may cause substantial risk of HBV transmission from blood transfusion, organ transplantation as well as vertical transmission as screening is solely dependent on HBsAg testing.
在表面抗原（HBsAg）阴性和核心抗原（抗-HBc）抗体阳性的血液中，明显健康个体可能不存在循环乙型肝炎病毒（HBV），并且可能具有传染性。尽管存在 HBV 传播的风险，但埃塞俄比亚尚未对此问题进行报道；因此，本研究在埃塞俄比亚东部确定了孤立抗-HBc（IAHBc）的 HIV 阴性和 HIV 阳性个体中的隐匿性乙型肝炎病毒感染（OBI）。本研究共纳入 306 名 IAHBc 个体。根据制造商的说明，使用市售的实时 PCR 平台（Abbott m2000rt）从血浆中提取、扩增和检测 DNA。数据输入 EPI Data 版本 3.1，使用 Stata 版本 13 进行清理和分析。描述性分析用于计算患病率，总结社会人口统计学数据和其他因素。在纳入本研究的 306 名 IAHBc 个体（184 名 HIV 阳性和 122 名 HIV 阴性）中，183 名（59.8%）为女性，其中 142 名（77.6%）处于生育年龄组。在 224 名个体中进行了 DNA 提取、扩增和检测。IAHBc 个体中 OBI 的总体患病率为 5.8%（HIV 阴性为 5.6%，HIV 阳性为 6%）。隐匿性乙型肝炎个体中的 HBV DNA 浓度<200 IU/mL，表明真正的隐匿性。本研究报告了 OBI 的负担，由于该国 HBV 感染负担高，这构成了一个重大的公共卫生问题。OBI 可能导致血液输血、器官移植以及垂直传播的 HBV 传播风险显著增加，因为筛查仅依赖于 HBsAg 检测。
