Abstract
Hepatitis B virus infection is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa, and accounts for a significant proportion of morbidities and mortalities in Ghana. Infection with HBV during pregnancy can result in life-threatening complications to both mother and child. To improve their quality of life, the free maternal care was introduced to grant pregnant women cost-free access to antenatal and postnatal services. The study analysed the prevalence of HBV infection among pregnant women receiving free antenatal care in a tertiary hospital in Ghana. This was a retrospective cross-sectional study, where secondary data of pregnant women who accessed free antenatal services at the Trafalga hospital, Ho, from 2016 to 2017 were retrieved from the hospital’s database. Data on hepatitis B surface antigen reactivity test, age and period of turnout were analysed with Microsoft Excel and Graph pad prism version 6. A total of 2,634 pregnant women assessed free antenatal care from January 2016 –December 2017, with 10% rise in turnout in 2017. The age of the study population was fairly young, ranging from 13–52 years and mean of 29.87±5.83. The prevalence of HBV infection among pregnant women in the entire study was estimated to be 6.0%, while that of 2016 and 2017 were 5.3% and 6.7% respectively. Turnout for antenatal services peaked in July, which also recorded the highest prevalence of HBV infection among the pregnant women. Our study, first of its kind show an HBV prevalence of 6.0% among a large population of pregnant women who accessed free antenatal services at a tertiary hospital in Ghana. The study evaluates the influence of the free maternal care policy on antenatal attendance and HBV infection rates among pregnant women.
Highlights
The free maternal healthcare policy adopted by Ghana in 2008 is an absolute requisite intervention that provides to pregnant mothers free and easy access to healthcare delivery in all public and selected private healthcare facilities across the country [1]
Boasting of a large sample size in our study, we show here an increased turnout of pregnant mothers accessing antenatal care (ANC) with considerably reduced prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection
This trend is further observed in the entire yearly visits, where a 6.7% hepatitis B prevalence rate was determined among 1,380 pregnant women accessing the ANC facility in 2017 compared to the 5.3% prevalence rate determined among the 1,254 pregnant women who visited the facility in 2016
Summary
The free maternal healthcare policy adopted by Ghana in 2008 is an absolute requisite intervention that provides to pregnant mothers free and easy access to healthcare delivery in all public and selected private healthcare facilities across the country [1]. The major goal for rolling out such policy was towards reducing maternal and infant mortality by providing to all, convenient, reliable and unlimited access to antenatal and postnatal care services [4, 5] Under these services, pregnant mothers undergo several compulsory clinical assessments that promote the wellbeing of the mother and the unborn baby. Among these clinical assessments includes laboratory testing for infectious pathogens, of which screening for hepatitis B virus (HBV) is of high relevance [6, 7]
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