Seroprevalence of Hepatitis B Virus among Human Immunodeficiency Virus patients attending tertiary and secondary health facilities in Benin City Nigeria.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic has changed the prevalence of some infectious diseases. Hepatitis B is a very important potentially lethal and presently treatable infection which affects the course of HIV disease. This study was carried out to determine the prevalence of hepatitis B virus [HBV] infection in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected patents undergoing treatment in two major hospitals in Edo state over a 12 month period. All HIV infected persons aged 15 years and above of either gender seen between 1^st January and 31^st December 2002 in the University of Benin Teaching hospital and central Hospital Benin City were included in this study. A total of 204 HIV infected patients [81males, 123 females] seen over this period were screened for HbsAg. HIV infection was confirmed using the double ELISA technique. One hundred and sixty six [66 males and 100 females] age and sex matched HIV negative patients recruited from the general outpatients clinic of those hospitals formed the control group. The mean age of HIV infected patients was 37.14 ±10.94 with a range of 15-70. The two groups compared well as regards age, sex, occupation and social class. However, widows has significantly higher prevalence amongst the HIV patients. Seventy one percent [71%] of the HIV patients were symptomatic. The prevalence of HBV amongst the HIV infected patients was 10.75% as compared to 7.2% in the control [P> 0.05]. This was however not statistically significant. This study showed that though the prevalence of Hepatitis B infection is higher in HIV infected patients, this difference is however, not statistically significant from that in HIV negative controls.