Hepatitis A Virus Prevalence among Healthcare Students and Profissionals of Federal University of Bahia, Brazils

Abstract

Introduction: Hepatitis A Virus (HAV) is a hepatotrophic virus with oral-fecal transmission. Occupational exposition to the virus is not common in the health practice and this way of contagious is not considered as a risk of infection. Adults have more probability to have fulminate clinical manifestations and in Brazil, the most of population older than 20 years have had contact with this virus. Aim: to study the prevalence of antibodies anti A virus (IgGHAV) in students (group 1) and professionals (group 2) of the health area of the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA). Methods: was studied IgGHAV in 335 seras from volunteers who had completed an epidemiological questionnaire. Results: Antibodies IgGHAV+ in 56, 1% of the sample and 43,9 % of the individuals were susceptible to the infection. 94, 4% of the professional had IgGHAV+ and 48, 8% of the students had IgGHAV+ (p=0,000). There was an association between professional category and history of exposition to biological material (p=0,0017). There was not association between IgGHAV+ and history of exposition to biological material. This result could show the environment and occupational exposition to this virus. The more prevalence of IgGHAV titers in the professional individuals who were older shows the spread of the infection life through. Conclusion: this study showed that 43,9 % of the individual who start to work in contact with biological material are susceptible to the hepatitis A infection, this generate an new epidemiological reconsideration about the practice of vaccination in this special population in Brazil.