سرواپيدميولوژي هپاتيت E در زنان سنين باروري گرگان

Seroepidemiologic assessment of hepatitis E virus in women of reproductive age, Gorgan

Background: Hepatitis E virus can be disseminated oral-fecally and its fulminant form mortality rate maybe up to 20% in the third trimester of pregnancy. This study aimed to assess the sero-epidemiology of HEV in women of reproductive age in Gorgan, Iran. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive study, 1200 women ages between 17-45 years were recruited from laboratories and health care systems of Gorgan. Demographic data was recorded in the checklists. ELISA method (DIAPRO) was done to evaluate the anti-HEV antibody. Data were entered into SPSS-13 software for analysis by Chi-squared and Fisher exact test. Results: Mean (±SD) age of the cases was 27.41 (±6.33). Among 1200 subjects, 76(6.3%) cases had positive anti-HEV antibodies. Age and ethnicity had a significant relationship with HEV (p-value<0.05), but no significant relationship was seen between other variables. Conclusions: According to our results and due to higher positive cases in 30-40 years-old women, more researches especially in pregnant women are suggested. [ZJRMS, 12(l):44-47]