FREQUENCY OF HEPATITIS B C INFECTION IN NEWLY RECRUITED CIVIL SERVANTS IN KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA

OBJECTIVE: To determine the frequency of hepatitis B virus (HBV) hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections in healthy individuals selected for new recruitment in civil service in various governments departments of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa.METHODOLOGY: This descriptive study was carried out in Police Services Hospital, Peshawar from 15-07-2011 to 15-10-2012. All the newly recruited government personal (total 4639) in various cadres from basic pay scale (BPS) 01 to 18, divided in two groups (groups-1: from BPS 01-14 and group-2 from BPS 15-18) attending the hospital were included in the study. Three millilitre of blood was subjected to rapid screening using the Immunochrmatographic (ICT) kit. All the positive cases on the rapid screening were confirmed by 3rd Generation ELISA technique.RESULTS: Out of 3012 individuals in group-1, ranging in age from 18 to 30 years (mean 23.22 + 0.53 years), frequency of HBV was 4.5% 3%,HCV was 5.2% 3.8 % and dual HBV/HCV was 2.1% 1.7% in males and females respectively. While in group-2, having 1627 individuals ranging in age from 18 to 36 years (mean 24.67+ ± 0.61 years), frequency of HBV was 2.3% 1.8%, HCV was 2.2% 2% while both HBV/HCV was 0% and 0.7% in males and females respectively.CONCLUSION: The frequency of HBV HCV infections remains high in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa especially in the low income groups despite apparently normal health. More extensive seroprevalance and frequency studies recruiting various segments of the society are needed to determine the true prevalence.