Abstract
BackgroundHepatitis E virus (HEV) is highly endemic in several African countries with high mortality rate among pregnant women. The prevalence of antibodies to HEV in Ghana is not known. Therefore we evaluated the prevalence of anti-HEV IgG and anti-HEV IgM among pregnant women seen between the months of January and May, 2008 at the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department, Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Accra, Ghana.ResultsOne hundred and fifty-seven women provided blood samples for unlinked anonymous testing for the presence of antibodies to HEV. The median age of participants was 28.89 ± 5.76 years (range 13–42 years). Of the 157 women tested, HEV seroprevelance was 28.66% (45/157). Among the seropositive women, 64.40% (29/45) tested positive for anti-HEV IgM while 35.60% (16/45) tested positive to HEV IgG antibodies. HEV seroprevalence was highest (46.15%) among women 21–25 years of age, followed by 42.82% in = 20 year group, then 36.84% in = 36 year group. Of the 157 women, 75.79% and 22.92% were in their third and second trimesters of pregnancy, respectively. Anti-HEV antibodies detected in women in their third trimester of pregnancy (30.25%) was significantly higher, P < 0.05, than in women in their second trimester of pregnancy (25.0%).ConclusionConsistent with similar studies worldwide, the results of our studies revealed a high prevalence of HEV infection in pregnant women.
Highlights
Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is highly endemic in several African countries with high mortality rate among pregnant women
Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is a major cause of human viral disease with clinical and pathological features of acute hepatitis
There was no selection of patients from a larger cohort of cases; the cases presented here were the first 157 consecutive patients to enter the Gynaecology Clinic during the period of the study who consented to participate in the study and a request for HEV testing was sought
Summary
Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is highly endemic in several African countries with high mortality rate among pregnant women. Stoszek et al and Patra et al reported prevalence rates of 84.3% and 60%, among pregnant women in Egypt and India, respectively [8,9]. In Ghana, studies of HEV seroprevalence in pregnant women have not been done previously. In a much earlier related study, Martinson et al [10] reported the seroprevalence of HEV among children in rural Ghana to be 4.4%. Many HEV outbreaks have been reported in Africa [11,12,13,14,15,16], such as Uganda in 2007–2008 [11], and Sudan and Chad in 2004–2005 [15]
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