Decline of viral hepatitis prevalence among asymptomatic Egyptian blood donors: A glimmer of hope

Background: Viral hepatitis is an important etiological agent of chronic hepatitis and liver disease and is a major cause of morbidity and mortality especially in Egypt since it has the highest prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. We aimed to assess if there is any change in the annual seroprevalence of both HCV and hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in Egypt in the current era. Methods: Our study included 55,922 potentially healthy asymptomatic blood donors; 52,280 males and 3642 females with mean age of 30.98 +/- 8.6 years. All of them were volunteers for the first time and 70% were from rural areas. We applied our own questionnaire that included past medical history, surgical history, and history of blood donation. We screened their sera for the presence or absence of anti-HCV antibodies with the 3rd generation enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and the presence or absence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) with ELISA. Results: The cumulative seroprevalence of HCV and HBV infection was 11.95% and 1.3% respectively. The annual seroprevalence of both viruses showed a declining pattern throughout the study period from 17.7% to 7.4% regarding HCV and HBV infection from 2.3% to 0.9%. The decline trends for both viral infections were observed for both genders. Conclusion: This study carries a glimmer of hope because of a decline in seroprevalence of viral hepatitis in Egypt. However stringent implementation of infection control programs in Egypt is mandatory to face this furious health problem. (C) 2009 European Federation of Internal Medicine. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.