IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pkp/tajoam/v3y2016i3p31-37id2725.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Prevalence of Hepatitis C Virus Infection among People Attending a Voluntary Screening Centre in Masaka, Nasarawa State, Nigeria

Author

Listed:
  • Pennap GRI
  • Nuhu II
  • Oti VB

Abstract

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is an emerging public health problem in Nigeria. This study therefore determined the seroprevalence of this virus among people of a rural settlement in Nigeria during which 600 people were screened for HCV infection. Five ml of blood was collected from each participant, the serum harvested and screened for anti- HCV using a Chromatographic rapid test kit (ACON Inc. USA) according to the manufacturer’s instructions .The overall prevalence of HCV infection in this population was 24.2% being higher among males (23.7%) than females (23.7%) (p 0.05). Only Educational level had a significant association with infection (p < 0.05). When stratified by age infection was highest among those aged 21 -30 years (27.4%) and least among those aged 51 years and above (3.6%) (p 0.05). Occupation and marital status also had no statistically significant relationship with viral infection. The 24.2% infection rate reported in this population is a cause for alarm because it means there is a high viral reservoir in the area. There is also a high number of persons likely to have end- stage liver diseases among these participants. The absence of identifiable risk factors is a major challenge to prevention and control and demonstrates the need for reevaluation of transmission routes in the locality. Screening should be available and affordable.

Suggested Citation

  • Pennap GRI & Nuhu II & Oti VB, 2016. "Prevalence of Hepatitis C Virus Infection among People Attending a Voluntary Screening Centre in Masaka, Nasarawa State, Nigeria," The Asia Journal of Applied Microbiology, Conscientia Beam, vol. 3(3), pages 31-37.
    • Handle: RePEc:pkp:tajoam:v:3:y:2016:i:3:p:31-37:id:2725
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://archive.conscientiabeam.com/index.php/33/article/view/2725/4260
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pkp:tajoam:v:3:y:2016:i:3:p:31-37:id:2725. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dim Michael (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://archive.conscientiabeam.com/index.php/33/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.