Abstract
Summary Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection represents a serious health problem in Brazils Amazon basin, where early exposure during childhood occurs in areas with highest endemnicity. With an aim to contribute to the regional policies for HBV control in this region, a survey was conducted to determine the prevalence of serologic and molecular HBV markers among 1,460 pregnant women who attended prenatal health-care in nine sub-regions of Amazonas State (Brazil). In these sub-regions, the prevalence of HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) ranged from 0% to 8.7%, the prevalence of antibodies to HBV core antigen (anti-HBc) ranged from 5.3 to 75.9% and of antibodies to HBV surface antigen (anti-HBs) from 10.6 to 73.4%. Among 46 HBsAg-positive women, 36 (78.3%) were reactive for HBV-DNA using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR). HBV-DNA load was less than 1x10 3 copies/ml in 73.9%, but 8.7% had more than 1x10 5 copies/ml, indicating active infection. The results show some sub-regions of Amazonas State have a high prevalence of HBV markers in pregnant women and, although most of them have low levels of viremia, some women pose potential risk of mother-to-child transmission due to their high viral load.
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