الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Chronic infection with hepatitis B virus is a leading cause of death from cancer in Africa; a quarter of the 60 million carriers die either of primary hepato-cellular carcinoma or cirrhosis of the liver. The use of hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine has been associated with a dramatic decrease in the incidence of HBV infections, as well as of hepatocellular carcinoma, in countries where it is widely used. Because of the serious nature of HBV infection, clinicians should be vigorous in their attempts to achieve universal vaccination of infants and to identify and vaccinate persons at risk for infection. The present study has demonstrated the effectiveness of HBV vaccine among Egyptian children. Subjects were relatively homogenous: All had received the same recombinant HBV vaccine with the same schedule during infancy. The overall sero-protection rate among the studied children was 86% (64% were between 10-100 IU/L and 22% anti HBs more than 100), and 14% were sero negative (anti HBs <10IU/L). Children with higher age group (>10 years), girls, low socioeconomic status and who lived in rural areas were significantly had high rate of non sero protection. (< 0.03; <0.01 ;< 0.001; <0.003, respectively). Children with history of regular medical injection, blood transfusion, and diabetes mellitus had significantly higher non sero-protective rates compared to children with no such history (P < 0.005, P< 0.04, P<002 , respectively) . The percentage of non sero-protection was significantly high among very low and low SES when compared to non sero-protection among middle SES. In the current study, it was found that children with HAP and WAP < 5th percentiles had significantly lower non sero-protection rate compared to normal children. |