[Prevalence of markers of the HBs system of hepatitis B among hospital personnel in Morocco: evaluation of the risk of hepatitis B infection].

The prevalences of HBs Ag and HBs Ab were investigated among 221 hospital or laboratory staffs in Casablanca (Morocco) to estimate the importance of risks of infection by HBV at which they were exposed with regard to a control group including 195 blood givers from the city. Staff originated from following departments: infectious diseases, emergency, blood center, haemodialysis and a laboratory associated to this one. HBs Ag has been investigated by inhibition of haemagglutination and HBs Ab by passive haemagglutination. X2 test, with Yates correction if need, was used as statistical. method. HBs Ag and Ab prevalences, higher among hospital staff than in controls (p less than 0.05), showed an increased risk of HBV infection in the formers. Among staff, whatever one's occupation may be, HBs Ab prevalence did not shown appreciable changes. In contrast, the HBs Ag one varied significantly from one department to the other, depending on factors such as hygiene and asepsis, reducing the risk, and contagiousness of some hospitalized patients or more or less frequent exposures to infectious blood, increasing the risk. The influence of these factors was illustrated and discussed by comparison of HBs Ag prevalence with frequency or importance of infectious exposures among staff from each studied department. As reported in various countries, in Morocco hospital and laboratory staff is exposed to a high risk of infection by HBV and the interest to vaccine such persons against hepatitis B is underlined.