Author(s)

Ki. Agrawal, S. K. Sarin, K. Agrawal, S. S. Hissar & U. Baveja

Abstract

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) and Hepatitis C virus (HCV) frequently coexist with HIV virus due to its common routes of transmission and associated liver disease which tends to challenge HIV treatment. The ethnic variations and data from the Asian subcontinent on this aspect are not available to our knowledge. The aims of this paper are to study the prevalence of HBV and HCV infections in HIV positive patients and the mode of their acquisition. The study was conducted at the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), New Delhi from June 2003 to January 2004. All the study patients provided consent. A detailed questionnaire, routine hematological and bio-chemical tests and clinical examination of these patients were done. All patients were HIV ELISA Rapid positive and confirmed by western blot. Serological markers, HBsAg, HbeAg, Anti Hbe and Anti-HCV, were done with third generation ELISA kits and HBV DNA quantified using the bDNA technique. The data was subsequently analysed using SPSS software. 100 HIV positive patients were included in our study whose mean age was 32.74 ± 9.4 years, male:female=71:29 and BMI was 19.66 ± 3.2. 13 patients (13%) were HBV co-infected (M:F=10:3), of which 8 patients were HBeAg positive, 3 were positive for Anti Hbe and 2 patients were negative for both HBeAg and Anti HBe. None of the patients were found to be Anti HCV positive. Mode of transmission in all HIV positive patients was predominantly by sexual route (91%; n=91). 12 out of 13 HBV co-infected patients were also found to be infected by sexual route (p=0.65). Multivariate analysis with respect to HBV infection was done with the following variables—Education, occupation, per capita income, wt loss and clinical symptoms—and they were found to be statistically insignificant. Our data suggest that HBV is less prevalent with HIV as reported in Western countries and the relevant reasons need to be considered. Keywords: human immunodeficiency virus, Hepatitis B virus, co-infection, prevalence.

Keywords

human immunodeficiency virus, Hepatitis B virus, co-infection, prevalence.