Seroprevalence of Hepatitis A Virus IgG Antibodies among Ain Shams University Outpatient Clinic Egyptian Children and Adolescents

GINA E.G. YOUNES, M.Sc.; LERINE BAHY EL-DIN AHMED, M.D.; AMEL A. ELFARAMAWY, M.D.;, IMAN M. TALAAT, M.D. And MENNA ALLAH Z.M. ABOU ELWAFA, M.D.

doi:10.21608/mjcu.2024.371358

Seroprevalence of Hepatitis A Virus IgG Antibodies among Ain Shams University Outpatient Clinic Egyptian Children and Adolescents

Document Type : Original Article

Author

IMAN M. TALAAT, M.D. and MENNA ALLAH Z.M. ABOU ELWAFA, M.D. GINA E.G. YOUNES, M.Sc.; LERINE BAHY EL-DIN AHMED, M.D.; AMEL A. ELFARAMAWY, M.D.;

The Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University

10.21608/mjcu.2024.371358

Abstract

Background: Hepatitis A virus is a non-enveloped ribonu-cleic acid virus that is transmitted via the fecal-oral route. It is one of the most frequent communicable diseases with an esti-mated 1.5 million cases diagnosed each year globally. Aim of Study: To assess the seroprevalence of hepatitis A IgG antibody in a group of Egyptian children and adolescents and to correlate the findings with possible socioeconomic and demographic risk factors. Patients and Methods: This was a cross sectional study conducted at Ain Shams University Children’s hospital outpa-tient clinic (OPC), Cairo, Egypt during the period from Sep-tember 2023 to March 2024 and performed on 200 Egyptian children and adolescents above the age of 1 and below the age of 16 years. Results: To all enrolled cases, history was taken focusing on the course of the presenting complain and demographic risk factors, clinical examination was conducted including general, chest, cardiac and abdominal examination, evaluation of so-cioeconomic status was done and serum sample withdrawn for assessment of Hepatitis A IgG antibody seropositivity. As regards demographic risk factors, there was no statistically-significant difference regarding gender between males and females. There was also no statistically significant difference regarding anthropometric measures between seropositive and negative cases. As regards presenting symptoms, respiratory and GIT symptoms were the most frequent presenting symp-toms among studied cases with a frequency of 38% and 30% respectively. Our study showed that the seropositivity of Hepa-titis A IgG antibody increased significantly with decreasing so-cial class from 31.6% among children in the high social class to 64.3% in the middle social class to 76.5% in the low social class. Despite improvements in gross national products and in socioeconomic standards. Conclusion: The overall seroprevalence of Hepatitis A IgG antibody among our cases of 200 Egyptian children and adolescents was 68%. Hepatitis A IgG antibody prevalence was statistically significantly higher with higher age, lower social class, lower paternal education and residence in Lower Egypt. Higher social class is the group at risk for infection oc-curring later in adolescence or early adult life with more severe symptoms in the case of contact with HAV patient.

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