Study examines hepatitis A, B, and C in South African healthcare workers.(Brief Article)

2002 MAR 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - Preemployment screening as well as vaccination, training and standardized postexposure policies could help reduce the risk of occupational exposure to viral hepatitis among healthcare workers in South Africa.

Epidemiologists at the University of Witwatersrand in Parktown, South Africa, made the recommendations after testing for the prevalence of antibodies to hepatitis A, B, and C viruses (HAV, HBV, HCV) in 402 healthcare workers at a large urban hospital in that country.

"Race, sex and age were shown to be important factors influencing the presence of HAV antibodies," commented E. Vardas and coauthors in the Journal of Hospital Infections. Nearly all black healthcare workers carried the antibodies, with more females than males showing anti-HAV prevalence among the entire group of workers.

Slightly less than a third of the workers were positive for antibodies to HBV. "Anti-HBs levels were significantly associated with a past history of HBV vaccination," Vardas and colleagues noted, "However, only a small proportion of healthcare workers (21%) could remember ever being immunized against HBV."

A minimal number of workers had antibodies to HCV, 1.8%, and it was not clear to investigators how the individuals had contracted HCV infection. Even so, genotypic analysis of at least two workers showed they ...